UC-NRLF 


sons  §•  OF 


•X 


SONGS  OF  DESTINY 

AND  OTHERS 


BY 


JULIA   P.  DABNEY 

Author  of  "  Poor  Chola,"  "  Little  Daughter  of 
the  Sun,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

31  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET 
1808 


COPYRIGHT 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  CO. 


Ube  Ifcnfcherbocfccr  press,  flew  Jflorfc 


CONTENTS. 


Songs  of  IDesting. 

PAGE 

I. — EARTH-TOUCH i 

II. — FIRE-BAPTISM 17 

III.— STAR-MIST 20 

IV. — DESTINY 30 

Miscellaneous  jpocms. 

MIRACLE 36 

OF  MY  STAR 39 

APPASSIONATO      ......  40 

To  THE  STATUE  OF  AN  ARCADIAN  SHEPHERD 

BOY 41 

THALATTA    .        .        .        .        .        .        -43 

MY  THRUSH 47 

OH,  HAPPY  BROOKS 48 

AEOLUS 50 

A  DANCE  OF  THE  DRYADS  .        .        .        .52 

BACCHANAL 55 

SHADOWLAND 56 

ASPIRATION  .  .        .        .        .        .58 

THE  CATTLE  COMING  HOME       ...      59 
iii 


iv  Contents. 

PAGB 

TMOLUS 61 

MARINERS  OF  THE  WORLD  ....  67 

IL  BEATO 68 

LIKE  THE  LARK 77 

AUTUMN        .......  78 

WIND  ON  THE  SEA 82 

MADRIGALS 84 

O  PALE  COLD  MOON 87 

THE  WILL-O'-THE-WISPS      ....  88 

THOR  THE  THUNDERER        ....  91 

THE  VALKYRIER  ......  93 

SIEGFRIED'S  SWORD 97 

TITHONUS 99 

WAKING        .......  102 

QUESTION 103 

TAKE  HER,  KIND  DEATH   ....  104 

SONNET — WITH  A  BUNCH  OF  ARBUTUS.     .  105 

SUMMER  MIDNIGHT      .....  106 

AMONG  THE  MOUNTAINS      ....  107 

AN  IDYL  OF  JUNE no 

MY  LOVE  is  LIKE  THE  DAWN  OF  DAY      .  113 

CIRCUMSTANCE 114 

THE  FULNESS  OF  TIME        .        .        .        .115 

DANUBE  BOAT-SONG 115 

UNDINE'S  FAREWELL  TO  HULDEBRAND         .  116 

THE  PARC.E 118 

A  SYMPHONY  OF  THE  HILLS        .        .        .122 

Go  NOT,  LONG  SUMMER  DAY      .        .        .  130 

To  A  ROSE  CAST  UPON  A  STREAM     .        .  131 
MONADNOCK  CROWNED        .        .        .        .131 


Contents.  v 

PAGE 

JETSAM 133 

EVENSONG 133 

PROGRESSION         ......  135 

VESPERS  OF  THE  HERMITS   ....  136 

SATTVA 139 

FLY,  MY  SONG 140 

NIGHT  PIECE 140 

UPON  A    ROMANZA   OF   SCHUMANN  .  .      141 

A  SONG  FOR  NOVEMBER  ....  142 
NEVER  TO  KNOW  .....  143 
TO-MORROW  AND  TO-MORROW  AND  To- 

MORROW 145 

LIKE  A  LUTE  TOUCHED  BY  FACILE  FINGERS.     145 

TRANSMUTATION 146 

SWALLOWS  AT  SUNSET  ....  146 
GOING  OUT  WITH  THE  TIDE  .  .  .  148 

ALLEGRO  GIOJOSO 150 

A  SONG  OF  BLOSSOM 152 

A  WIND  RUSHED  OUT  OF  THE  SEA  .  .153 
THE  LOST  PLEIAD  .  .  .  .  .155 
HYMN  TO  THE  NIGHT  .  .  .  .161 

AT  SUNSET .     163 

A  TOAST  FOR  THE  YEAR     .        .        .        .165 

ORPHEUS  SINGS 168 

RHAPSODY 176 


Songs  of  Destiny 

"  Give  me  truths, 
For  I  am  weary  of  the  surfaces." 

R.  W.  EMERSON. 


I. 

EARTH-TOUCH. 

\17E  are  but  chaff,  but  chaff 
*  *       Swept  on  the  wind — 
Mocking  storm-gusts  that  laugh, 

Whirling  behind! 
Poise  have  we  none  our  own, 
Axis  and  centre  none, 
Motes  in  a  void  alone, 
Gaugeless  and  blind! 

We  are  but  leaves,  but  leaves 

Wrenched  from  the  tree, 
Scattering  fugitives 

No  more  to  be; 
Knowing  not  where  we  go, 
Shrivelled  and  lying  low, 
Blotted  by  shroud  of  snow 
Impotently! 


io  Songs  of  2>estfnB» 

We  are  but  breath,  but  breath 

Breathed  from  a  sigh, 
Naught  but  a  shibboleth 

Swift  to  pass  by; 
Form  is  a  shifting  dream, 
Substance  too  frail  to  seem 
Aught  but  a  transient  gleam ; — 
Life  all  a  lie! 

Thus  we  disintegrate, 

Crushed  by  the  law  ? 
Sport  of  a  ruthless  fate, 

Cast  on  a  shore 
Strewn  of  all  wreckages, 
Chaos  of  that  and  this, 
Where  there  no  purpose  is  .< — 
This — and  no  more  ? 

Into  the  fecund  earth 

Falleth  the  seed, 
Prescient  of  coming  birth 

Meet  for  its  need. 
Folded  in  darkling  coil, 
Warmed  of  the  throbbing  soil, 
Steadfast  thro'  night's  despoil 

Till  day  succeed; 


Quick  at  its  soul-sun's  call 

Upward  to  thrust 
Soft  shoot  through  moldy  pall ; 

Cleaving  the  crust, 
Drinking  the  sunshine  there, 
Basking  in  fervid  air, 
Building  a  being  rare 

Out  of  the  dust. 

Thus  of  its  vital  need, 

Thus  it  achieves; 
Breaking  from  rotting  seed 

Burgeons  to  leaves; 
Careth  not  what  its  power, 
Whether  of  tree  or  flower, 
Knows  only  't  is  its  hour 

And  that  it  lives ! 

Casts  by  the  outworn  shell 

Now,  nothing  loth, 
And  by  swift  parallel 

Springs  to  new  growth; 
Changing  the  outward  sign, 
Guarding  in  secret  shrine 
Alway  the  germ  divine, 

Life  of  them  both. 


of  Meeting. 


Once  in  each  musky  copse 

Dwelt  there  a  god, 
Spirits  on  mountain  tops, 

Souls  in  the  clod. 

Winds  brought  the  whispered  word, 
And  if  a  leaf  but  stirred 
It  was  a  god,  half-heard, 

Mystery-shod. 

Ah,  in  those  ages  old, 

Called  pantheist, 
Backward  perspectives  rolled 

Into  the  mist, 
Simple  men  were  of  skill 
And  all  untutored,  still 
Something  they  grasped  at  will 

Which  we  have  missed. 

Poised  in  Nature's  arms, 

Made  of  her  part, 
Drained  they  life-yielding  charms, 

Felt  pulses  start,  — 
Far-centred  overflow, 
Upsurging  throe  by  throe, 
Through  all  their  vitals  go, 

Warm  from  her  heart. 


Bartb^Goucb.  13 

Child-like,  she  held  them  true 

Sons  of  her  ken, 
And  the  world's  childhood  knew 

Surelier  then 

How  faith  the  world  unlocks. 
Here  was  no  paradox; 
Live  were  the  rivers — rocks  ? 

Aye !  so  were  men  ! 

We  of  a  later  age, 

Sated,  grown  wise, 
Come  to  our  heritage 

Shorn  of  surprise. 
Science  the  wonder  shames; 
Our  artificial  aims 
Choke  down  the  spirit-flames, 

Blot  out  the  skies. 

Blind  in  our  vain  conceit, 

May  we  command 
One  universe  heart-beat  ? 

Wake  with  our  hand 
Star-glory,  sunset  flush  ? 
Lay  on  the  rose  one  blush  ? 
Or  yet  as  lark  or  thrush 

Praise  understand  ? 


14  Songs  of  2>e0tfnB. 

Lo !  every  side  a  truth 

Plain  to  man's  sight, 
Spells  of  immortal  youth 

Read  but  aright. 
Everywhere  miracle, 
Nature's  alembics  full 
Of  new  life  wonderful — 

Secrets  of  light! 

Still  in  thy  bosom  warm, 

Glad  Mother  Earth, 
Keep'st  thou  the  secret  charm 

Of  death  and  birth. 
Winds  bear  the  whispered  word, 
Breathes  it  through  beast  and  bird, 
And  thy  heart  guards,  deep-stirred, 

All  we  hold  worth. 

Stripped  of  our  cumbrous  wants, 

Thee  will  we  woo, 
Into  thy  sacred  haunts 

Stealing  anew, 
Thy  simpler  ways  to  heed: 
We  are  the  seeking  seed 
Laid  of  our  vital  need 

On  thy  heart  true. 


15 


We  of  thine  element 

All  are  made  one; 
Fashioned  to  like  intent, 

Bared  to  same  sun. 
Swinging  to  natural  law, 
Equipoised  more  and  more, 
Soul-breaths  with  thee  we  draw 

In  unison. 

He  who  hath  ears  to  hear 

Heed  let  him  give, 
He  who  hath  soul  for  seer 

Let  him  perceive 
Through  thy  sweet  motherhood 
One  universal  good, 
One  law,  scarce  understood, 

By  which  we  live. 

Pulses  that  come  from  thee, 
(Rock-throes  or  flowers,) 

Bear  all  the  mystery, 
Stir  all  the  powers. 

Out  of  the  husk-born  strife 

Breaketh  the  god-head  rife,  — 

Life,  universal  life!  — 
Thy  God  and  ours  ! 


16  5on00  of  2>estin& 

O  sick  and  weary-wise, 

Once  more  return ! 
Underneath  open  skies 

Child-like  grace  learn ; 
Here  waits  the  mystic  shrine, 
Lights  unimpeded  shine, 
And  in  the  grove  divine 
Your  altars  burn. 


II. 

FIRE-BAPTISM. 

Thou  shalt  be  as  a  god, 
And  the  worlds  be  given  thee; 
At  thy  beck  shall  mountains  nod, 
Thou  shalt  put  a  yoke  on  the  sea; 
Unto  thee  be  given — 
So  thou  prove  worth — 
The  keys  of  heaven 
As  well  as  earth. 

The  keys  of  the  masterful  occult  powers 
That  hold  all  cosmic  force  in  fee, 
That  leash  the  days  and  fetter  the  hours, 
The  talisman  of  supremacy; 
If  thou  only  fearless  be, 
If  thou  do  but  dare ! 
Art  thou  not  more  than  the  bird  of  the 

air  ? 

The  beast  of  the  field,  the  worm  in  his  root  ? 
Fear  is  the  meed  of  the  brute, 
17 


is  Songs  ot 


The  grosser  reason  that  hath  no  hold 
Of  higher  elements  manifold, 
So  meets  his  cosmos  mute. 

But  thou  —  thou  art  master. 

And  out  of  thy  freedom  greater 

And  out  of  thy  tenure  vaster  — 

Thine  aspirations  higher  — 

Thou  shalt  be  judge  and  creator, 

And  thy  thought  shall  purge  as  fire. 

When  pale  fear  rise  — 

The  fleshly  chill— 

Thou  shalt  kill! 

Thou  shalt  pierce  through  its  sophistries 

Till  a  shell  it  lies. 

For  thou  must  slay  or  be  slain  of  it  ! 

And  Knowledge,  the  sanctifier, 

And  Courage,  with  torch  star-lit, 

Poised  at  the  poles  of  life  shall  sit  — 

On  the  heights  of  understanding  — 

Arming  the  purpose  that  faints  at  naught, 

The  flame  of  endeavor  heavenward  caught, 

And,  ever  expanding,  expanding, 

The  circles  dynamic  of  thought. 

If  I  call  to  the  deaf  shall  they  hear  ? 
If  I  sign  to  the  blind  shall  they  know  ? 


19 


Yet  we  are  both  blind  and  deaf  in  our  fear, 

Wrecking  ourselves  in  the  surface  woe; 

Knowing  not  whither  we  go, 

Knowing  not  why  we  are  here. 

Yet  we  should  know. 

If  we  trace  the  steps  below 

We  must  surely  see  those  above; 

See  the  march  of  being  move  — 

The  higher  out  of  the  lower, 

Each  fulfilling  its  kind  — 

From  the  germ  to  the  opened  flower, 

From  the  brute  to  the  master-mind. 

And  beyond  all  the  forces  we  know 

There  is  force  more  imponderable, 

More  sublimated,  more  vital,  more  fine, 

That  shall  breed  a  being  more  grand  and 

full, 

With  never  a  severed  line; 
With  never  a  break 
'Twixt  the  far  and  near. 
For  the  touch  electric  reaches  us  here 
Straight  from  the  astral  sphere; 
And  all  shall  be  ours  to  take. 
Oh  choose,  and  cease  from  the  clod! 
Oh  spirit  of  man,  awake, 
Dare,  and  be  as  a  god  ! 


III. 

STAR-MIST. 

T  DREAMED  I  was  a  beggar  at  the  gate, 
*     The  beautiful  gate  wherethrough  the 

busy  throng 
Poured  morning,  noon,  and  eve — flux  and 

reflux — 
Like  some  vast,  surging  sea; — some  mighty 

tide 

Now  ebb  and  ebbing  till  with  slimy  tongues 
The   parched  weeds  lick  the   palpitating 

rocks, 
Then  flood  and  flooding  with  swift,  briny 

breaths 

Drawn  from  mid-ocean  deeps,  and  sun- 
shot  sparkles 
Cleaving  the    emerald,    as    the    shooting 

lights 

20 


21 


Cleave  and  transfuse  a  gem;    and   ever 

more, 

With  sonorous,  majestic  mastery, 
Rushing  to  fold  the  land  in  foaming  arms! 
From  the  still,  dewy  dawns,  when  roseately 
The  sun  stole  up  and  drowsed  the  morn 

ing  stars, 

Into  the  silver  night  sweeping  the  spheres 
With   the   trailed   glimmer  of   her  dusky 

robes, 
The  great   sea  poured   its   never-ceasing 

flood, 

But  always  left  me  stranded  —  and  alone. 
For  I  was  one  untoward  fate  had  sealed 
With  vicious  brand;  —  a  vile,  distorted 

thing, 

Congenitally  crippled;  swept  aside 
From  that  far-surging  sea  whereon  my  soul 
Would   fain   have   sailed  —  a  god-like   ar 

gosy— 

From  port  to  port  of  fancy.     Mine  it  was 
To  lie  amid  the  loathing  of  my  rags 
And  snuffle  forth  a  cry  for  niggard  alms  ; 
And,  if  some  passer-by  more  prodigal 
Than  others  flung  a  ringing  handful,  fawn 
In  gratitude  o'er-feigned;  —  I  who  starved, 


22  Songs  of  Besting. 

Starved  for  a  food  of  higher  elements! 
I  watched  the  evening  star  climb  up  and 

up— 

A  lambent  beacon  to  the  eyes  of  faith, 
A  symbol  meaningless  to  me — then  drew 
My  poor  rags  closer,  crouched  in  grimmer 

mood 

To  lift  my  dumb  reproaches  till  the  dawn. 
Alas!    for  days   that   pass   and   leave   no 

sign, 

Rolled  in  a  calendar  of  vapors,  swept 
Like  evanescent  mists  into  the  sea! 
Dim  dreams — half  dreamed,  chaotic,  neb 
ulous, 
Tinged  with  a  fringing  light  which  never 

dawned — 
Would  vaguely  stir  me  with  an  unnamed 

pang 

To  deeper  wretchedness; — imaginings 
Of  some  diviner  world  to  be  embodied 
In  harmony  of  form  or  tint  or  sound. 
Thoughts  crowded  on  me  as  a  flock  of 

swallows 

Circle  and  vanish  down  a  sunset  sky. 
I  might  have  been  a  master  artisan, 
Fashioning  dreams  into  fair  stone,  endued 


23 


With  very  gift  of  being;  or,  perchance, 
Evoked  from  out  the  dull,  unsensing  wood 
Rare  visions,  tinctured  by  th'  enamelled 

wax 

To  exquisite  conception;  or,  more  free, 
I  might  have  measured  all  the  empyrean 
On  the  exalted  wings  of  song.     In  me, 
Dim    and    disordered,    stirred    the    vital 

germ— 
The  central  fire  —  which  makes  such  visions 

live; 

Only  the  gross  flesh  held  me  in  its  leash  : 
Only    the    flesh  —  the    sordid,     prisoning 

flesh- 
Held   me   in   leash!      Know'st   thou   the 

wounded  eagle, 
A  proud,  strong  thing,  born  to  invade  the 

heavens, 

Dragged  helpless  by  its  malady  to  earth  ? 
Its  very  impotence  a  ruthless  goad, 
It  beats  the  traitrous  air  with  frantic  wings, 
And  chafes,  and  strains,  and  trembles  back 

again 

Broken  and  foiled.     Oh,  never,  never  yet 
Have  I  put  forth  the  power  that  in   me 

lies! 


24  Songs  of  Besting 

Slain  by  its  outward  hurt,  my  spirit's  wings 
Battle  with  nothingness  in  passionate  strife, 
Only  to  break  in  dust  and  lie  more  prone. 

And  in  a  burning  mist  my  dream  went  on. 

Once,  on  a  languid  noon  when  the  whole 
land 

Lay  in  a  semi-swoon  of  summer  drouth, 

And  the  hot  beams  crawled  down  the 
parching  walls, 

Pushing  the  narrowing  shadow  where,  in 
ert, 

Lay  man  and  beast  in  a  dull  mid-day 
drowse, 

There  came  a  mighty  surge  of  trampling 
feet, 

And  babel  tongues  of  clamoring  multi 
tudes; 

And — as  a  sudden  wind  wakes  answering 
voices 

Through  silent  tree-tops,  passing  stir  to 
stir — 

There  throbbed  throughout  the  throng  a 
murmurous  cry, 

"  Jesus  of  Nazareth!  "    And  others  asked, 

"  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  heals  the  sick  ?  " 


25 


A  sudden  lull—  as  when  a  gusty  pause 
Palsies  the  breeze  —  held  the  vast  horde  in 

check. 

I  heard  hoarse  questionings  and  over  all 
One  vibrant  tone  soared  like  a  silver  flute. 
Less  had  a  whirlwind  moved  me!     Some 

wild  power 
Lifted  my  crippled  frame  ;  I  clutched  and 

tore 
A  bleeding  passage  'mid   the   trampling 

feet- 

Deaf  to  the  cursing,  blinded  to  the  pain  — 
Until  —  withdrawn  into  a  little  space, 
Hemmed  and  encircled  by  the  stertorous 

crowd  — 
I  looked  upon  him  —  him  they  called  the 

Christ. 
Not  like  a  conqueror  came  he,  armed  and 

crowned; 

Not  in  a  hero's  guise;  but  meanly  robed 
In  bodily  insignificance;  yet  still 
About  his  brow  there  dreamed  an  astral 

mist, 

As  if  he  walked  with  angels  and  not  men. 
Serene  he  stood,  a  starry  presence.     Then 
Nearer  I  crept,  and  with  my  wasted  hands 


26  Songs  of  Besting. 

Fingered  his  garments.     Lightning-like  he 

turned: 
"  What  would'st  thou  ?  "  and  he  dazed  me 

with  his  glance. 
"  What  would'st  thou,  friend  ?  "     "  Lord, 

that  I  might  be  whole." 
"  Art  thou  not  whole  ?     The  soul  is  always 

whole. 
Behold!  "       Then    leaning    closelier    he 

flamed 
In  mine  the  revelation  of  his  eyes. 

Strange,  dusk-hued  eyes  wherein  my  spirit 

plunged 
And  lost  itself,  while  the  mad,   cavilling 

world — 

The  sordid  jostle  and  the  empty  noise — 
Slipt  from  me  like  shed  flakes.     I  seemed 

adrift 

On  some  vast,  inward,  spirit-circled  sea, 
Unstirred   by    mutable    wind    or    mortal 

tide, 

Stretching  from  sight  in  fair  beatitude — 
A  mystical  transparency.     Everywhere 
There  was  a  brooding  glory  like  the  day, 
But  more  transcendent;  yet  I  saw  no  sun, 


27 


I   only  knew   its   presence;    and   strange 

lights  — 
Dazzling  prismatic  tongues  —  transpierced 

the  waters 

To  untold  depths.     Illimitable  space 
Throbbed  with  a  luminous  pulse,  a  corus 

cation 

Of  mingled  flame  and  fluid  ;  —  now  suffusion 
Of  myriad  electric  hues,  now  swept 
Into  a  paling  glamor,  lustrously 
Circling  to  wide  affinities,  outblotting 
All  time,   all  gauge,   all  concept  of  con 

dition  ! 

And  every  tiniest  atom  seemed  alive  — 
One  candent  drop  from  some  exhaustless 

fountain  ! 

As  in  irradiate  dawns  fair  lotus  cups, 
Folded  and  dewy,  feel  the  breath  of  day, 
And  faintly,  faintly,  with  a  crucial  throe, 
Tremble  to  waking  'neath  the  summoning 

beam; 

So  with  divinest  tremors  my  soul  woke  ; 
And  like  a  floating  flower-cup  I  lay 
Draining   wide    draughts   of    sempiternal 

truth. 
And  then  meseemed  this  iridescent  sea 


28  Son00  of  IDeeting, 

Was  the  life-tide  of  spiritual  perception. 
The  world  which  I  had  known  was  swept 

away; 

I  stepped  within  the  vaster  world  of  knowl 
edge. 

Creation  is  a  myriad-fibred  pulse 
Drawing  its  flame-beats  from  one  central 

fire, 

One  with  it  and  indissoluble;  so 
In  all  things  is  the  vital  touch  innate — 
Worm  or  archangel;    't  is  the  conscious 

sense 

Of  the  immutable  glory  which  makes  life ; 
And  soul  is  recognition.     Everywhere 
The  lower  doth  ascend  from  law  to  law, 
In  growths  that  brook  no  hindrance  and 

no  haste, 

Vast-organized,  unstaying.  We  who  hold 
Some  glimmer  of  the  Eternal,  hold  the  keys 
Of  grander  or  of  meaner,  with  our  thought 
Uplifting  or  debasing  ;  —  mind  being 

winged, 
And     high     thought     spiritual     presence 

realized. 

Nor  flesh  sets  bounds  to  sublimated  flight; 
These  mortal  manumissions  men  call  death 


29 


Being  but  doors  which  ope  to  wider  ranges. 
Consists  not  life  in  spendthrift  law  of  doing, 
But  the  supremer  one  of  being;  rests 
In  the  expanded  orbits  of  the  soul 
Whose  axis  is  the  central  solar  core  — 
Is  God  himself  ! 

One  meteoric  moment  stood  I  thus, 
For  truth  is  flashed  by  single  signal  fires 
When  the  initiate  is  ready;  then  — 
Dissolving  like  the  pageant  of  a  dream  — 
The   crowding,    trampling    human    surge 

swept  on, 

Leaving  but  hollow  echoings  in  ears 
Held  and  attuned  to  finer  cadences. 
And  was  I  healed  ?     I  never  paused  to  ask. 
No  more  I  feel  the  temporary  dress. 
For   me   time   is   not,   and   those  grosser 

webs  — 
Self-spun  —  which.  sometime  seem  to  clog 

the  sense 

Are  also  melted  like  a  sun-smit  fog. 
He  who  is  made  alive  in  heart  is  whole, 
And    hath    nor    claim   nor    question    nor 

denial, 

But  rests  —  a  god  —  in  the  eternal  law, 
Knowing  his  destiny. 


IV. 
DESTINY. 

'"THERE  is  no  death,  no  death!     The 
*       veil  is  lifting, 
The    veil    is    lifting    from  the    mortal 

sight! 

Dull  fogs  into  Cimmerian  deeps  are  drift 
ing, 
Through  premonitions  of  immortal  light. 

There  is  no  death,  no  death!     The  great 

stars  beckon 
Like  fiery  guide-marks  through  the  dark 

to  day; 
We  have  our  chart,  the  upward  course  we 

reckon, 

We   cannot   turn    aside    nor    miss    the 
way. 

30 


Besting.  31 

There  is  no  death,   no  death!     Through 

unknown  places 
We    voyage    with    a   true,    unswerving 

helm; 

We  sweep  infinitudes  of  stellar  spaces, 
Still    aiming    for    some   higher,    vaster 
realm. 

We  know  the  measure  of  our  aspiration 
Is  founded  in  the  measure  of  the  law, 
That  cannot  stay  its  own  ordained  crea 
tion, 

But    must    advance,    advance    forever- 
more, — 

A  seamless  web ;  with  ending  and  beginning 
Fixed  beyond  the  plenitudes  of  time, 

And  which  the  soul  of  man  is  ever  spin 
ning 
Into  a  comprehension  more  sublime. 

We  know  the  circles  of  increasing  vision 
Shall   probe    in    regions    evermore    su 
preme, 

And  shed  the  finite  guises  of  transition 
As  sleepers  shed  the  vapors  of  a  dream. 


32  Son0s  of  IDesting. 

We  know  that  change  is  but  in  man's  per 
ception 
Which  metes  all  semblance  by  one  little 

day, 

Still  faintly  schooled  into  that  fine  concep 
tion 
Of  life  which  cannot  ever  pass  away. 

We  know  these  fires  of  our  inward  yearning 
Which  rend  us  with  their  purport,  faint 

and  dim, 

Are  sacred  flames  upon  God's  altars  burn 
ing; 

The   quickening   links   which   bind    us 
unto  Him, — 

The  immanent  and  all-pervading  Presence, 
The  one  vast,   throbbing   pulse   which 

moves  the  sphere, 

The  indestructible  and  vital  Essence 
By  which  alone  we  are,  both  now  and 
here. 


Hast  thou  not  seen  the  summer  midnight 
dreaming 


Destiny  33 

On  northern   shores  betwixt  two  mys 
teries, 

From  hemisphere  to  hemisphere  still  seem 
ing 

Reflected  currents  of  opposing  skies, 

Whose  flame-tongued   surges,   luminously 

blending, 

The  shadowy  confines  of  all  things  im 
merse, 

Like  a  full,  orbic  tide — far-rolled — unend 
ing— 
To  sweep  the  reaches  of  the  universe  ? 

Touched  with  a  symboled  aureole  eternal, 
The   great   world   lies   in   calm,    trans 
figured  might, 

Surrendered  to  its  syncope  nocturnal, 
Surrendered  to  its  miracle  of  light! 

The  west  still  tinctured  with  a  lingering 

glamor, 
The  waiting  east  suffused  with  kindling 

charms, 

Till  swiftly,  with  a  rapt,  celestial  tremor, 
The  morning  takes  the  evening  in  its 
arms ! 


34  Songs  of  Besting 

Softly  the    gloaming    melts,    serene  and 

tender, 

God-like  the  dawn-ray  leaps,  with  flam 
ing  breath 

That  swells  and  floods  into  majestic  splen 
dor — 
Into  the  day! 

THERE  is  NO  DEATH,  NO  DEATH  ! 


fBMecellaneous  fl5oem& 


35 


MIRACLE. 

IT  is  day! 
Over  the  mountain  tips 
The  delicate  stream 
Of  a  color-dream 
Wavers  and  flushes  and  slips; 
The  pinnacles  all  are  agleam 
As  if  they  were  swept  by  phantom  lips. 
Every  somnolent  hollow,  void 
With  veils  of  night,  hath  decoyed 
Some  amber  shaft  of  day; 
Lurk  as  it  may, 

The  darkness  is  ravished  away! 
The  great  crags  laugh,  and  the  little  streams 

leap 

Heedless  and  headlong  adown  the  steep, 
While  the  mist-wreaths  upward  and  upward 

creep, 

To  melt  evanished — sifted  and  shaken— 
Life-overtaken. 

36 


/BMracle.  37 

The  face  of  the  dappled  meadow 

Folded  in  drowsy  shadow 

Still  lieth,  but  oh!  the  finger  of  love 

Shall  over  it  move; 

Its  beauty  with  new  grace  invest, 

And  bid  it  awaken, 

Awaken  and  joy  with  the  rest! 

Sunbeams  acreep  in  the  grass, 

Sunbeams  aflame  in  the  sky, 

Where  great  white  cloud-pageants  surging 

by 
Snatch  rose-tints  as  they  pass! 

The  Earth  is  singing  a  song! 
Long,  long 

She  spins  the  winsome  tune, 
Like  a  mother's  cradle-croon 
To  her  infant  ruddy  and  strong. 
To  her  love  the  budding  year 
She  sings  in  numbers  clear, 
And  where  no  live  things  were 
There  passeth  a  stir; 

The  slumb'rous  ones  hear  it  and  under 
stand  ; 

At  the  word  of  loving  command 
They  haste  to  answer  her. 


3s  /HMracle. 

For  lyrics  of  Spring  and  Birth 

Singeth  our  Earth. 

Not  a  hillside  so  held  in  its  wintry  swoon, 

Not  a  naked  forest  so  sere  and  brown 

But  must  feel  a  thrill  of  its  power; 

Not  a  calyx  so  folded  down 

But  shall  know  its  hour. 

'T  is  as  if  a  wizard's  wand 

Had  circled  on  every  hand, 

Some  chill  enchantment  had  overthrown, 

And  liberated  the  land. 

She  is  clothed  anew, 

Our  sweet  Earth-Mother, 

All  fresh  things  vying  with  one  another 

Each  to  don  a  daintier  hue ! 

One  could  scarce  tell  whether 

The  half-heard  drift  of  the  breeze 

Harping  alone  through  the  trees, 

Or  those  cloud-flakes  so  airily  dressed, 

Or  the  flash  of  color  but  half  expressed 

In  yonder  tall  grass-feather, 

Be  the  tenderest; — 

All  are  so  perfect  together! 


©f  mg  Star.  39 

OF   MY   STAR. 

T^HERE  'S  a  star  that  shines  for  me 
*       In  the  brooding  firmament, 
Past,  present,  and  to  be 

The  goal  of  my  heart's  content. 
Mine  evening  star  in  the  dark, 

My  morning  star  with  the  day, 
She  sheds  through  the  heavenly  arc 

Her  soul's  serenest  ray. 
And  so  high  she  burns,  and  true, — 

Where  the  lights  celestial  are, — 
That  she  lifts  me  upward  too 

With  her  love  : — my  star — my  star  ! 

0  goal  of  my  heart,  my  star  ! 
What  matter  if  earth  be  cold, 

And  error  attempt  to  mar 
Love's  miracles  manifold  ? 

1  shall  neither  fail  nor  faint, 
I  doff  the  burden  of  care, 

For  she  shields  me  from  life's  attaint, 
She  fends  from  the  world's  despair. 

And  aye  through  the  firmament, 
As  the  holy  gates  unbar, 

I  shall  enter  in  and  be  blent 

With  her  love  : — my  star — my  star  ! 


40  Bppasgfonato. 

APPASSIONATO. 

PAOLO    TO    FRANCESCA. 

!    I  will  love  thee   with  a  love  so 
strong 
That  it  shall  breast  the  surge  and  bar  the 

tide; 
My  spirit  on  its  passion  swept  along 

Must  cleave  to  thine  though  worlds  on 

worlds  divide. 

I  know  no  rest  where  thou  dost  not  abide, 
Thine  only  touch  my  torn  heart  may  re 
store  ; 
Divinely  perishing,  unsatisfied, 

As  life  doth  fleet  forever  more  and  more 
Still  will  I  love  thee! 


Oh !  I  will  love  thee  with  a  love  so  vast 
That  it  shall  bridge  o'er  life  and  van 
quish  death; 

The  storm,  the  strain,  the  anguish  over 
past, 

The  darkness  of  this  night  which  openeth 
To  day,  be  as  a  flickered  candle's  breath. 


Bn  Brcafctan  SbepberD  JBog.        41 

The  stars  may  fade,  the  universe  past  be, 
Yet,  borne  on  pinions  of  a  tireless  faith, 
Across  the  threshold  of  eternity 
Still  will  I  love  thee! 


TO  THE  STATUE  OF  AN  ARCADIAN 
SHEPHERD   BOY. 

THOU  blowest  thy  pipe  on  the  lea, 
And  thy  tame  sheep  answer  thy  call ; 
The  wind  with  its  ungauged  minstrelsy 
Wafteth  thine  echoes  o'er  many  a  sea; 

But  the  sweetest  of  all 
Is  the  song  thou  art  breathing  to  me. 

The  song  of  a  world  ever  young, 
Unpoisoned  of  greed  or  of  heat, 

An  infant  purity — long  unsung, 

A  faultless  grace  from  the  fair  earth  wrung, 
Wind-wings  for  the  feet, 

And  a  paean  on  every  tongue. 

In  the  jostling  street's  discord 

With  its  fetid  atmospheres, 
The  strongest  arm  must  aye  be  lord. 


42        Bn  BrcaDian  SbepberD 


Though  the  sky  be  high  and  the  earth  be 

broad, 

*T  is  his  fellows'  tears 
He  heaps  with  his  impotent  hoard. 

Away  from  the  brutal  stress  — 

The  false-dipping  scale  of  the  mart! 

There  is  no  gold  in  the  flower's  dress, 

We  may  take  of  her  treasure  and  leave 

none  the  less; 
To  the  unspoiled  heart 

The  lowliest  things  will  bless. 

The  forests  no  bargainings  know, 

They  spring  not  by  custom  or  rule. 
Would'st  thou  rise  to  thy  man-god  stature  ? 

—  then  go  — 
Trust    the    Oreads  —  they   will    feed    thee 

enow, 

In  their  worshipful  school 
Where  the  soul-wings  have  room  to  grow. 

Lo  !  a  presence  peeped  from  yon  wood, 
A  star-smile  flashed  from  the  stream; 
The  voices  call  us  from  forest  and  flood; 
In  flutter  of  garments  marvellous-hued, 


Cbalatta.  43 

They  start  from  a  dream, 
And  people  the  solitude. 

Lives  there  no  touch  to  read 

The  hieroglyph  of  this  lore  ? 
Shall  life's  pageant  pass  and  never  take 

heed? 
Must    our   world    lie   fallow    and    barren 

indeed 

For  centuries  more, 
With  its  fruitless  and  slumbering  seed  ? 

Alas,  for  a  grace  long  flown ! 

Alas,  for  the  silent  flute ! 
I  call  to  thee,  but  the  echo's  tone 
Mocks  me, — the  accents  are  all  mine  own ; 

And  thou  ? — thou  art  mute, 
Thou  shepherd  boy  carved  in  stone ! 


THALATTA. 

SLOW,  slow, 
Over  the  sea, 
Low,  low, 

And  mysteriously, 


44  Gbalatta. 

Eddied,  purling, 
Crisping,  curling, 

Over  the  shallows  and  seaweedy  beach, 
Down    the    dunes    and   the    long    sand- 
reach  ; 

Sing  thou  a  song  to  me! 


A  languorous  dream 

Of  emerald  deeps, 
Where  the  wan  sunbeam 

Flickers  and  sleeps. 
Grottoes  gemmed 

Amid  phosphor  seas, 
Fringed  and  hemmed 

With  anemones. 


Many  a  column 

With  nakre  set; 
High  dome  solemn, 

Where  waters  fret. 
A  palace  beautiful 
Fit  for  a  sea-king's  rule; 
With  portals  dusky-wet, 
Weed-festooned  and  cool, 
For  a  sea-king's  vestibule. 


Gbalatta  45 

Sing  me  a  song  of  the  restless  main, 

Great  waves  heaving  and  whelmed  and 

crossed; 

The  shrilling  scream  of  the  hurricane 
Over  the  drift  of  white  foam  tossed. 
A  song  of  courage  that  could  not  fail, 

Ploughing  the  wastes  of  a  pathless  track; 
Of  stout  sails  trimmed  to  the  treacherous 

gale, 

Of  ships  that  have  sailed  and  never  come 
back. 

Picture  me  too 
The  valorous  crew 
That  the  swirl  of  the  waves  down-drew. 

The  ruthless  effort,  the  pitiless  strain 
Of  arms  that  battle  the  surge  in  vain ; 
Of  flagging  hands  in  their  vice-like  grip, 
Dank  with  the  salt  and  the  death-sweat 

drip; 

Of  voices  that  call  and  are  never  heard; 
Of  hearts  through  the  death-pang  torn  and 

stirred 

Only  to  send  back  one  word! 
Flow,  flow, 
Over  them  flow! 


46  Gbalatta. 

What  do  they  know 
Of  the  opaline  caves  below  ? 

Warm,  warm 

Broods  the  summer  calm. 

Far  and  near 

The  sun  burns  clear 

Through  a  lucent  atmosphere. 

Never  a  sigh 

Of  strife  gone  by 

Comes  re-echoing  here. 
Only  an  indolent  sea-bird's  cry, 
A  sea-bird's  cry  and  a  charmed  breeze 
Hushing  the  deeps  with  its  lullaby: — 

These,  only  these. 

But  white  waves  waking, 

Creeping,  breaking 

Each  over  each, 

Pointing  the  beach 

With  feathery  spume, 

Dimpled  and  soft 

Like  an  outworn  plume 

By  sea-maid  doffed; 

Ever  come  speaking 

The  tale  of  a  day, 

Of  a  ship  that  sailed  away. — 

Ah  me ! — was  it  yesterday  ? 


Gbtusb.  47 

MY   THRUSH. 

A  GAINST  the  burnished  tint 
^*     Of  saffron  dreaming  into  opaline 
Through  western  skies,  with  half  a  hint 
Of  evanescent  green 
Above  them  in  a  shimmering  overglow; 
Poised  upon  a  long  and  leafless  bough, 
Seeming  between  heaven  and  earth  to  hang, 
He  swayed  and  sang. 

He  swayed  and  sang  as  if  his  tiny  throat 

Too  fragile  were  to  bear  the  ecstasy 

Of  such  divine  heart-flood, 

Which  through  the  solitude, 

With  every  leaping  note, 

And  every  rhythmic  trill, 

The  measure  of  the  silence  seemed  to  fill. 

Ah !  not  for  him 

The   creeping   shadow   and   the    cloistral 

gloom. 

His  spirit  hath  no  room 
For  spectre  dim, 

For  pain,  or  darkness,  or  despondency, 
Or  those  strange  pangs  that  lie 


48  ®b,  1bapp£ 


Deeper  than  tears,  which  to  the  voiceless 

come. 

Far  above  all, 

He,  like  a  prophet  pure  and  passional, 
Fronting  the  illimitable  flight 
Of  day  amid  trails  of  light, 
Its   promise  seals,   and   through  the  em 

pyrean 

Breathes  his  high  paean:  — 
A  psalm  of  aspiration  and  delight  ! 


OH,    HAPPY   BROOKS! 

f~\  H,  happy  brooks  that  croon  amid  the 
^-^     wood, 

Or  lightly  loiter  by  some  leafy  dell, 
Your  voices  are  the  songs  of  solitude, 

With  limpid  joy  in  every  syllable, 
And    tender   tremors  in  your  quirls  and 
crooks. — 

Oh,  happy  brooks ! 

The  frail  fern  woos  you,  trailing  through 

the  wet, 

And  fronds  of  crimson  drink  your  over 
flow, 


©b,  tbappg  Broofcs !  49 

And  star-eyed  blossoms  amid  mosses  set; 
While  flights  of  sunbeams  flicker  as  you 

go 

To  sleepy  pools  some  gnarled  tree  o'er- 
looks. — 

Oh,  happy  brooks ! 

Dim  dreams  still  greet  us  through  the  foli 
age. 
Balsamic  whispers,   lingering  lone  and 

late, 
Tell  of  a  sweeter  and  a  simpler  age — 

Revealed  alone  to  the  initiate — 
Which  all  our  artificial  day  rebukes. — 
Oh,  happy  brooks ! 

Perchance  within  some  far-withdrawn  re 
treat, 
Where  dimpling  ripple  over  green  sedge 

slips, 
The  wild-wood  nymphs  have  viewed  their 

image  sweet, 

Or  shyly  kissed  you  with  immortal  lips, 
Then,     startled,     fled     away     to    deeper 
nooks. — 

Oh,  happy  brooks! 


5o  Seolus. 

Oh,  happy  brooks  that  in  your  bosoms 

bear 

The  soul  of  Arcady,  forever  young! 
You  bring  us  all  her  joyance  unaware; 

There  is  a  living  lyric  on  your  tongue — 
A  wordless  essence  of  unwritten  books.~ 
Oh,  happy  brooks! 


AEOLUS. 

HEARD  ye  my  sigh 
Wakened  mysteriously 
Out  of  eternal  space  ? — 
From  the  midnight's  bosom  deep, 
From  the  arms  of  sleep, 
Wafted  it  knoweth  nor  whence  nor 

why; 

Gift  with  the  grace 
Of  celestial  space; 
Soft  as  unuttered  note 
That  low  in  the  fledgling's  throat 
Hovereth,  hovereth; 
Faint  as  a  breath 
Of  roses  as  they  die. — 
Heard  ye  my  sigh  ? 


Bcolus.  51 

Heard  ye  my  song 

Whispered  the  stars  among  ? 

I  touched  with  my  finger-tips 

On  the  airy  drifts  of  cloud 

Till  they  laughed  aloud 

And  swept  my  tender  flutings  along; 

As  a  young  thing  sips 

With  eager  lips 

And  joyance  of  heart  and  limb, 

The  goblet  filled  to  the  brim ; — 

The  cup  o'erfoamed  and  rife 

With  life,  life,  life, 

With  young  life,  sweet  and  strong! 

Heard  ye  my  song  ? 

Heard  ye  my  call  ? — 
My  herald  of  festival  ? 
I  swept  off  the  early  dew 
From  lilies  in  pooled  nook ; 
Drowsed  buds  I  shook ; 
I  leaped  with  the  rainbowed  water 
fall; 

And  I  loitered  to  woo 
Where  great  fern-tufts  grew; 
I  ruffled  the  silent  lake, 
And  I  bade  the  forests  awake, — 


52  B  Dance  of  tbe 


Awake  and  follow,  follow! 
From  holt  to  hollow, 
Lo  !  I  will  gather  them  all  ! 
Heard  ye  my  call  ? 


A   DANCE   OF   THE   DRYADS. 

CHANT    ROYAL. 

"P\USK  on  the  terrace  towers  the  dream- 

*-*     ing  pine, 

The  chestnut  slumbers  up  the   craggy 
steeps, 

The  budding  broom  low-droops  in  drowsy 

line, 
The  myrtle  in  the  shadowy  hollow  sleeps. 

The  strong  air,  whence  all  life  doth  ema 
nate 

Forever,  in  quiescent  mood  doth  wait, 

And  leaves  the  land  wrapped  in  ethereal 
trance ; — 

Not  one  untuneful  note  nor  dissonance 
To    steal    a    glamour  from  the    perfect 
night, 


B  H>ance  of  tbe  2>rgaD0.  53 

While  down  the  mossy  coverts    we    ad 
vance. — 

'T  is  good  to  taste  the  measure  of  de 
light! 

Bind  garlands;  dill  with  violet  combine, 
Woven  with  cassia  and  wind-flower  that 

weeps. 

Around  our  brows  wreathe  the  lush,  trail 
ing  vine, 
Through  whose  dark  folds  the  ripening 

cluster  peeps. 
Across  the  greensward  fair  nymphs,  hasting 

late, 

Shall  scatter  buds  and  blossoms  delicate, 
So  that,  amid  the  glittering  expanse, 
Wherever  foot  shall  fleet  or  vision  glance 

The  fragrant  flood  the  spirit  shall  invite, 
And  the  sense  feast  on  rich  luxuriance. — 
'T  is  good  to  taste  the  measure  of  de 
light! 

Hold  the  hands  fast, — the  fond  clasp  inter 
twine, 

As  up  the  seven-voiced  pipe  the  music 
creeps; 


54          B  Dance  of  tbe 


And,  when  the  winged  lyre  shall  give  the 

sign, 
Let  loose  the  fetters  of  young  blood  that 

leaps  ! 
Lithe  forms  shall  twirl  and  tremble,  mate 

to  mate, 

And  young  lips  make  the  silence  passionate 
With  the  glad  life  that  springs  for  utter 

ance. 

No  laggard  step,  no  fret  nor  dalliance 
To  stay  the  rapture  of  the  midnight's 

flight, 

Love  leadeth  and  immortal  is  the  dance.  — 
'T  is  good  to  taste  the  measure  of  de 

light! 


O  Golden  Artemis,  upon  us  shine 

The   livelong  hours!     Where  thy  pure 

radiance  sweeps, 

The  world  is  made  mysteriously  divine, 
And    living    wonder    lurks   in    hidden 

deeps. 

Dionysos  crown  we  in  his  regal  state 
With  vine  and  fruit,  and  hail  him  king, 
elate; 


JBaccbanal.  55 

And  purple-stained  Pan,  whose  haunts  we 

chance. 
Above  them  all  thy  glorious  countenance 

Reigneth  supreme — a  universe  alight: 
Make  thy  supernal  kiss  our  heritance. — 
'T  is  good  to  taste  the  measure  of  de 
light! 


BACCHANAL. 

OAISE  on  high  the  cup, 
*  ^     Pour  the  fiery  wine, 
Ruby,  frothed,  and  fine; 

Fill  it  up! 

Lo!  how  dance  the  sparkles  in  the  light, 
Shot  with  kisses  from  the  burning  sun ; 
Lo!    how  bubbles  foam  and  break  from 
sight, 

O'er  the  beaker's  brink, 
And  adown  the  flagon  over-run. 
Drink  the  perfect  wine ! 
Drink  the  gift  divine! 
Drink! 

Drain  the  draught  again ; 
Fire  unconfine; 


56  SbafcowlanD, 

Mark  with  burning  sign 

Heart  and  brain! 
Through  the  sources  floods   the   flaming 

throe, 

Every  thew  and  sinew  waxing  strong; 
And  the  winged  spirit  'neath  the  glow 

All  forgets  to  think, 
Leaping  upward  in  spontaneous  song. 
Drink  the  perfect  wine! 
Drink  the  gift  divine! 
Drink! 

SHADOWLAND. 

BACKWARD  and  forward  the  shadows 
go 

Over  this  veil  which  we  call  life, 
Shifting  and  drifting  to  and  fro, 
Spun  in  a  vague  and  vanishing  show; — 
Shadow  and  shimmer  rife. 

Greeting,  they  pass  in  the  fluctuant  drift; 

Drifting,  they  meet  and  greet  and  are 

gone, 

Some  with  the  seeming  touch  of  a  gift, 
Some  undefined,  as  the  low  mists  sift, 

Some  like  a  sigh  forlorn. 


SbaDowlanD.  57 

What  are  they  seeking  and  what  do  they 

bring  ? 
What  do  they  do  with  that  thing  called 

life? 

Lift  they  it  up  for  an  offering  ? 
Sink  it  in  slough  as  an  animal  thing  ? 
Crush  it  with  low-born  strife  ? 

One  swift  turn  of  the  whirring  wheel, 

One  short  turn  of  the  wheel  of  Time; 
Out  the  figures  familiar  reel, 
New  shapes  into  the  pageant  steal; — 
Puppets  in  pantomime! 

What  doth  it  matter  if  tear  or  smile 

Paint  the  hour  that  fleets  away  ? 
We  too — we — in  a  little  while 
Out  of  the  vapors  shall  silent  file 
Into  the  yesterday. 

What  hast  thou  found  in  that  shadowland — 
Knowledge-mongering  egotist  ? 

Hast  thou  a  grasp  of  a  spectral  hand  ? 

Hast  thou  a  foothold  on  which  to  stand — 
Thou  shadow  out  of  a  mist  ? 


58  B0pfratton. 

ASPIRATION. 

"CADE  world,  and  leave  me  free! 
•*•        Fade  sense! 

So  that  the  meanings  of  Omnipotence 
Burn  clear  in  me. 

Like  infants'  murmurings 

Pass  strife! 

Thou  dost  not  touch  the  central  core  of 

life, 
But  fleeting  things. 

O'er  circumstance  and  time 

Sweep  soul! 

And  know  them  vapors  which  have  no 

control 
Of  things  sublime. 

Why,  like  a  homeless  waif 

Forlorn, 

Should  I  against  each  gross,  low-lying 

thorn 
My  spirit  chafe  ? 

Why,  like  a  driven  leaf, 
Wind-thrust, 


Cbe  Cattle  Coming  fjomc.         59 

Toss     aimless     with    each    momentary 

gust,— 
My  clasp  as  brief  ? 

Pavilioned  over  all, 

Star-fed, 

The  Heaven  of  eternal  thought  is  spread. 
Therein,  withal, 

My  hungered  soul  may  fare, 

And  draw 

The  life-elixir  of  that  higher  law, 
And  blossom  there. 

THE  CATTLE  COMING  HOME. 

ALL  Ipswich  marshes  lie  ashine, 
Held  in  the  flame-trance  of  the  sun 
That  burns  the  west  to  panoplies 
Of  gold  and  crimson,  pearl  and  dun. 
Wan  vapors  wreathe  the  misty  line 
Of  hills  that  link  the  land  cross-wise ; 
While  through  the  nearer  marshlands  run 
The  tidal  rillets,  serpentine 
And  sluggish,  with  half-opened  eyes; 
And  all  the  emblazonment  of  skies 
In  them  reflected  lies. 


60          Cbe  Cattle  Coming  f)ome. 

All  living  nature  seemeth  dumb, 
The  land  enwrapt  in  endless  still, 
And  bird  and  insect  silent,  till 
A  tender  wind  begins  to  blow 

From  the  remotest  hill. 
And  fitfully  the  echoes  grow 
Of  footfalls  faint  that  nearer  come; 
And,  now  and  then,  breathes  soft  the  low 
Of  the  cattle  coming  home. 

Footfalls  that  greaten  and  grow  clear 

Across  the  twilit  meadows  far, 

Till  through  the  dusk  the  horns  —  spread 

wide — 

Of  Black  Bess  come,  and  then  the  star 
Of  Silverhead,  and  they  are  here ! 
In  laggard  ranks,  half  side  by  side, 
Half  trailed  in  lines  dissimilar 
That  break  and  join  and  interfere, 
Of  bovine  dullness  occupied, 
They  push  where  marsh  and  creek  divide, 

And  tramp  the  painted  tide. 

They  stamp  amid  the  gleaming  loam, 
And  break  my  pictures  beautiful; 
And  up  the  wet  stalks,  dark  and  cool, 


Gmolus.  61 

They  scatter  glories  through  the  grass 

From  each  prismatic  pool. 
But  now  the  sweet  lights  fade  and  pass, 
To  leave  the  land  in  monochrome ; — 
I  only  catch  the  moving  mass 
Of  the  cattle  coming  home. 


TMOLUS. 

OUT  came  he  from  his  forest  fastnesses, 
From  mossy  grottoes  where  naiads 
bathe  and  drink; 
For  the  hidden  haunt  of  the  timid  stag  is 

his, 

And  the  lair  of  the  bear  and  the  skulk 
ing  wolf  and  mink. 

Up  through   the   palpitant   air  his   tawny 

mountains 
Cleave  like  a  frozen   billow,   wave   on 

wave, 
Wet  with  the  ceaseless  tears  of  an  hundred 

fountains, 
Torn  with  inward  throes  into  chasm  and 

cave. 


62  ZTmolua, 

Now  were  the  naked  crests  flushed  saffron 

and  pink, 

Touched  by  the  finger-tips  of  the  god 
dess  Aurora, 
As,   up  and  down,  to  the  very  precipice 

brink, 

The  fearless  feet  of  her  airy  chargers 
bore  her. 

Still  down  the   valley's  flanks  the  forest 

slumbered, 

Purples  and  shimmering  grays  and  melt 
ing  blues, 

Where — hoary  shafts  erect,  a  host  unnum 
bered — 

The   great     trees     ranged     in     endless 
avenues. 

And  ever  back  and  forth  hung  the  moun 
tain  mist, 
Webbed    through    the   leaves,    a  pale, 

diaphanous  thread, 
Till  caught  in  the  rosy  arms  of  the  dawn 

and  kissed, 

And  who  shall  say  where  it  turned  and 
vanished  ? 


Stumbling  out  of  his  deeps  came  the  great 

god  Tmolus, 

Rugged  and  stern  and  shorn  of  tender 
ness; 
For  the  dawn's  enticements  he  cared  not  a 

flat  obolus, 

And  he  shaded  his  shaggy  brows  from 
the  wind's  caress. 

He  blew  out  the  cups  of  the  flowers  that 

dance  and  glisten, 
He  swept  the  forests  aside  with  a  turn 

of  his  shoulder, 
He  folded  his  hirsute  arms  and  paused  to 

listen 

On  the  barren  crest  of  a  tempest-ravened 
boulder. 

Over  against,  on  a  crag,  sat  the  great  god 

Pan, 

To  his  mouth  his  belt  of  reeds,  close- 
bound  and  hollow; 
And  near,  on  a  rose-tipped  cloud,  in  the 

image  of  man, 

With  his  stringed  shell  in  his  hand,  lay 
Phoebus  Apollo. 


64 


The  matted  locks  of  the  great  Pan  did 

eclipse 
The  little  horns  that  above  his  temples 

grew, 

As  he  raised  the  syrinx  up  to  his  eager  lips, 
And  a  challenge  smiled  to  the  world  as 
he  softly  blew. 


Out  of  the  seven-voiced  pipe  came  Earth's 

sweet  stress; 
The  wood-dove's  amorous  plaint,  and 

the  tender  coil 
Of    blossoms    shyly    oped    to    the    sun's 

caress, 

The  very  throe  of  the  seed  in  the  germi- 
nant  soil. 


Over  the  lands  went  the  wood-wild  sum 
mons  voicing; 
Little  brooks  laughed  and  a  smile  swept 

over  the  seas, 
And   the  hill-tops  echoed  the  strain  with 

swift  rejoicing, 

For   never   were   heard  such   ravishing 
sounds  as  these! 


65 


Then  the  other  attuned  his  lyre,  and,  pre 

luding 
With     fitful     cadence     and    dissevered 

chord, 
Touched    idle    fingers    over    the   vibrant 

string  ; 

Then  into    a   lofty  rapture   swept   and 
soared. 

Fraught  with  ecstasy,  thrilling  with  pas 

sionate  pain, 
Life    and    Love    incarnate    seemed   to 

spring, 
As  up  and  up  swelled  the  strong,  compell 

ing  strain, 

And  set  the  heart  of  the  universe  an 
swering. 

Great  gnarled  forest  trees  rocked,  line  on 

line, 
Delicate   flowers   sprang   up    from    the 

emerald  sod, 
And  ferns  reached  forth,  each  on  its  quiver 

ing  spine, 

As  all  of  them  turned  their  heads  and 
faced  the  god. 


66 

Wild  creatures,  one  by  one,  each  from  his 

lair, 
The  summons  breathed  in  the  searching 

theme  obeyed; 
The  little  fawn  came  down  with  the  savage 

bear, 

And  the  wood-squirrel  with  the  serpent, 
unafraid ; 

While  out  from  the  forest  glooms  and  the 

broken  rocks, 
With  many  a  twitter  and  chirp  and  twirl 

and  twire, 
All  feathered  things  swept  down  in  rushing 

flocks, 

And  hung  like  a  cloud  above  the  god 
and  his  lyre ! 

Then,  with  a  thunderous  cry  from  his  high 

retreat, 
Down   did   the   mighty  Tmolus  madly 

spring, 
And  flung  his  ponderous  bulk  at  Apollo's 

feet;— 

"  Lo!  thou  hast  borne  me  a  soul;   art 
thou  not  king  ?  " 


jflBarfners  ot  tbe  TKflorlfc.  67 

MARINERS   OF    THE   WORLD. 

JVA  ARINERS  of  the  world, 

*  "  *     Whither,  whither  steer  you  ? 

Your  sails  so  swift  unfurled 

By  fitful  winds  are  whirled, 

The  treacherous  shoals  are  near  you. 

Nor  gauge  nor  guide  the  great  main  hath, 

The  void  no  almanac, 

How  plough  the  wastes  without  a  path  ? 

How  know  the  shifting  track  ? 

How  shall  the  distant  port  be  won — 

The  harbor  of  the  sun  ? 


Mariners  of  the  world, 

Whither,  whither  speed  you  ? 

With  surges  tossed  and  curled 

Some  soaring  beacon  need  you. 

Stout  of  limb, 

What  may  force  avail  you  ? 

Skies  grow  dim, 

Oar  and  silk  sail  fail  you. 

Trust  not  your  souls  to  the  bending  spars; 

Steer  by  the  stars, 

Mariners  of  the  World! 


68  HI  jBeato. 

IL  BEATO. 

A  meditation  of  the  painter,  Benozzo  Gozzoli, 
upon  the  death  of  his  master,  Fra  Giovanni  Angelico 
da  Fiesole. 

I  T  E   is   gone — the   master — him   I  have 

*  *      served  so  long, 
My  star  from  the  shining  firmament  hath 
set! 

No  more  through  the  matins  I  hear  celes 
tial  song, 

For  earth  unto  earth  hath  repaid  her 
mortal  debt, 

Freeing   the   soul   to   blossom  to  endless 
light; 

It  is  I  alone  who  am  left  in  the  void  and 
night. 

//  Beato,  men  called  him — the  blessed — 

but  which  of  them  knew 
The  whole  intent  of  his  holy  and  high 

desire  ? 

For  the  purified  vision  is  given  only  a  few 
To  see  through  the  veiling  flesh  to  the 
altar  fire 


Streaming   upward  and  upward  in  flame 

divine, 
Making   the   human    heart   as    a    temple 

shrine. 


God  wot  he  might  portray  Heaven !    Nearer 

to  him 
Was  the  atmosphere  of  that  high  society 

Than  the  cloisters  he  dwelt  amongst,  and 

the  cherubim 

Swept  him  alway  with  their  wings  and 
kept  him  free 

From  the  sordid  touch  of  the  world's  con 
tinual  jar, 

Till  his  sanctified  spirit  greatened  into  a 
star. 

He  could  rest  tranquil  where  lesser  men 

importune, 

He  never  strove  for  his  vision ;  prayer 
ful  and  dumb, 
He  waited  the  word  of  his  Lord  in  rapt 

commune, 

Knowing    surely    the    summoning    call 
would  come. 


70  1TI  3Beato. 

Then  he  would  rise  and  toil,  and  his  love 

was  such 
The  very  colors  glowed  deeper  beneath  his 

touch. 

Impotent  mortar  waxed  to  a  sentient  grace, 
And  tenderest  life  awoke  from  the  sense 
less  panel, 

The  praise  in  his  heart  shining  out  of  each 

saintly  face 

As  if   of  itself, — his   hand  the  uncon 
scious  channel 

Of  that  tide  of  inspiration  which  might  flow 

Through  all  men's  veins  if  all  were  but 
pure  enow. 

Instinct  with  passion,  fresco  and  triptich 

grew  warm, 
Like  a  glittering  weapon  drawn  from  the 

shrouding  sheath; 

But  those  who  only  see  the  color  and  form 
Miss   the   finer   truth   of    the    meaning 

underneath; 
A  truth  immeasurably  mystic,   sweet  and 

choice — 
Too  elusive  for  speech,  which  only  music 

might  voice. 


11  JBeato.  71 

For  color  and  form  be  but  the  elements, 
The  cosmic  forces,  that  pass  through  the 

crucible 
Of  the  poet's  fiery  thought,  to  issue  thence 

Transmuted  into  a  power  of  finer  spell 
Than  merely  the  lineaments  of  beauty  and 

youth, 

To   breathe   through   the    ages   immortal 
love  and  truth. 

I  sometimes  think  that  he  never  saw  the 

world 

At  all,  but  dwelt  serene  on  the  mountain 
tops. 

For  him  over  noisome  fens  drifted  vapors 

pearled, 

And  only  light  filled  the  dark,  ensan 
guined  copse, 

While  the  sunset  held  alway  a  vision  of 
angels'  wings 

To  his  rarefied  sight,  so  lifted  in  highest 
things. 

The  world  in  its  feverish  strife — athirst, 

adust — 

Hath  need  of  a  few  winged  souls  from 
its  weary  level 


72  HI  JGcato. 

To  rise  and  sow  broadcast  the  seeds  of  a 

trust 
Too  crowded  with   grace  to  harbor  a 

cleft  for  devil. 
Though  they  walk  'midst  their  fellow-men 

unsceptred,  unseen,  • 

The  ground  is  holy  wherever  such  souls 

have  been. 

So  dwelt  the  master — of  us,  yet  not  of  us ; 
A  lamp  in  the  portal,  a  star  in  the  in 
finite  arc, 

Shining  in  fixed  faith  unswervingly — thus— 
Whether  men  paused  to  see  or  passed  in 
the  dark. 

The  few  who  gathered  around  him  to  pen 
cil  and  paint 

Caught,  as  he  touched  us,  the  aureole  of 
the  saint. 

The  many  beheld  in  him  only  a  dreamer 

of  dreams; 
A  unit — apart — in  a  self-colored  world 

all  ideal; 
But  which  of  us  all  can  swear  that  the 

thing  as  it  seems 


HI  ffieato.  73 

Through  the  shifting  report  of  the  rec 
usant  sense  is  the  real  ? 
The    impact   external — self-centred,    self- 
serving,  confined — 

Or  the  outpouring  shaft  of  light  from  the 
luminous  mind 

That  knoweth  existence  can  only  be  such 

as  we  seek 

Or  make  with  the  thought  of  its  govern 
ance  ?     'T  will  be  the  brute, 

If  the  mind  look   for    brutishness   only; 

let  the  soul  speak, 

And,  under  the  rule  of  love  made  abso 
lute, 

Life  would  spread  out  like  a  deep,  trans 
lucent  pool 

Mirroring  Heaven,  awesome  and  beautiful. 

Ah,  methinks  that  the  strain  of  spirit  for 
ever  high-fixed 
Must   sharpen   away  the   links  of   this 

bodily  chain 
To   slenderest  threads;    for   we   live  two 

worlds  betwixt, 

And  though  the  higher  must  still  of  the 
less  be  fain 


74  iri 

A  lingering  while,  the  veil  is  so  thin— so 

thin — 
The   hallowed   thought  might  lift  it  and 

glance  within. 

God  is  a  spirit;  they  who  would  worship 

Him 

Must  come  in  the  spirit's  wedding  gar 
ment  drest; 

Purified,  purged  of  the  personal  rags  that 

dim 

Hearing  and  sight  from  the  union  mani 
fest: — 

Uttermost  self-surrender,  passionless,  still, 

Volition  absorbed  in  the  one  Supernal  Will ! 

At   one — at    one! — one   with    the    causal 

whole ; 
The   circle  perfect,   rounded  on  every 

side! 
Then  indeed  through  the  open  gates  of  the 

soul 
The  gaugeless  truth  would  rush  in  a 

rapturous  tide; 

And  God  revealed  be  with  never  a  bar, 
Life  of  lowliest  atom  or  loftiest  star ! 


f  I  JSeato.  75 

Their  very  essence  and  being — all  that  is : 
The  outward  semblance  being  the  en 
velope, 

The  beautiful  vesture  of  God,  in  genesis: — 
Sun-vapors   over  the   Hills  of   Eternal 

Hope 

Drifting  to  law  of  sequence  transitory 
Till  vision  grow  strong  enough  for  the  un 
veiled  glory. 

God  is  a  spirit;  we  of  His  handicraft, 

Gendered  of  Him,  are  we  not  spirit  too  ? 
And  where  in  immortal   should  ever  the 

mortal  shaft 
Of  passion  or  pain  find  a  weakness  to 

welter  through 
Save  in  the  thought  of  wrong  ?      If  the 

thought  be  light, 
The  beacon  is  up  and  the  way  is  clear 

through  the  night. 

And   the   Reaper   grim,   what   should   he 

claim  of  us 

Save  the  robe  we  want   no   more  and 
would  lay  aside 


76  f  I  JBeato. 

For  other   covering — larger,    more   lumi 
nous — 

Lest   the   shell   the    spirit's    expanding 
grandeur  hide  ? 

Grudge  him  not  shadows:  starveling  he  is 
at  last, 

For  we  pass  not  away,  but  only  seem  to 
have  passed. 

Oh,  rest  not  foiled  in  the  sense  of  a  pigmy 

stature, 

Lost  in  atmospheres  of  mutable  earth ! 
Rather  rise  to  the  grasp  of  our  puissant 

nature, — 
Children  of  Light  that  we  be — and  know 

our  worth ; 
Know  we  might  be  as  Gods  so  we  dared  to 

be, 
And  over  evil  and  death  hold  the  mastery. 

Joy,  for  the  hope  immortal,  now  and  here ! 

Joy,  for  quickening  power,  never  stayed ! 

Though  prisoned  still  with  the  gyves  of 

self  and  fear, 

Though  the  seal  of  my  liberty  be  long 
delayed, 


Xtfce  tbe  Xatfc.  77 

I  have  lifted  a  tithe  of  the  veil  for  a  daz 
zled  glance, 

And  I  know  the  Truth  that  is  neither 
dream  nor  chance. 

Did  I  say  he  had  died — my  master  ?     Ah 

no,  no  death 

On  growth  so  perfect  could  lay  its  finite 
part, 

And  he  who  hath  alway  breathed  the  heav 
enly  breath 

Could  only  rise  more  high  for  the  flame 
in  the  heart; 

If  I  seem  to  have  lost  him  't  is  only  that 
sight  is  too  dim, 

Too  fearful,  too  stultified  still  to  follow 
him. 

LIKE   THE   LARK. 

LIKE  the  lark,  like  the  lark 
Cleaving  the  heavenly  arc, 
On  quivering  wings  rejoicing, 
A  vision  of  sunrise  voicing, 
And  flinging  his  message  o'er  open  and 

cloud 
Till  the  very  winds  sing  aloud, 


?8  Butumn. 

In  the  spell  of  his  rapture  caught : — 
So  uprises  my  thought. 

The  song  of  the  lark  must  end 

And  the  singer  descend. 

Weary  at  last  in  his  flight, 

The  paean   hushed  and  the  sweet  throat 

dumb, 

Sorrowful,  shorn  of  delight, 
He  must  sink — sink — sink  and  alight ; 
Back  to  earth  he  must  come. 

But  my  thought,  but  my  thought 

Abideth,  returning  not. 

For  oh!  through  the  aether  rare 

It  hath  soared  and  trembled  and  drifted, — 

Drifted  all  unaware 

Through  the  shining  gates  uplifted, 

And  hath  found  its  harbor  there: — 

For  my  thought  is  a  prayer. 

AUTUMN. 

MOW  come  the  days  when  life  awhile 
*  ^     stands  still, 

And,  wrapped  in  temperate  contemplation, 
views 


Sutumn.  79 

All  that  shall  be  and  was  ;  with  opened 

eyes 

Reads  presage  in  what  seemed  but  dark 
ened  text 
Writ  cross-grained  on   the  pages   of   the 

past, 

And,  mirrored  in  the  future,  dimly  sees 
The  promise  perfected  ; — so  dares  to  pause 
And  let  the  calm  peace  fill  and  be  fulfilled. 
Thus  Nature  pauses  too  and  lets  the  year — 
Her  finite  guise — put  on  ephemeral  hues, 
And  pander  sense  to  sense,  and  pass  away, 
The  semblance  of  its  brief  day  being  o'er, 
Robed  in  the  fitting  splendors  of  decay. 
Past   is   the   travail  of   birth   and  tender 

growth, 
The   pang   of   blossoms    waste   by    early 

storms, 

Of  fruitful  buds  made  cripple  and  distort 
By  unsought  frosts.     Past  is  the  summer's 

glut 

Of  rounded  branch  and  perfect  foliage. 
The  fierce  noon-heat  hath  bred  the  tem 
pest-gust 

And     the     destroying    whirlwind,    which 
have  torn 


8o  Butumn. 

Filament    from    filament,    scorched    with 

searching  fires 

The  springs  of  being.    Only  all  these  throes 
Are  overpast,  forgotten,  swallowed  up 
Beneath  that  healing  touch  of  joy  which 

links 

Finite  with  infinite  ;  and  so  to-day 
Nature    doth    lend    to  sense   her  inward 

grace. 

Lo  !    up  the  steeps  of  trending  hillsides, 

wrapped 

In  sombre  mantle  of  the  conifers, 
Now  here,  now  there,  like  flocks  of  flame 

burst  forth 

The  conflagrations  of  the  maples,  each 
Flaunting   to   each   a  more  o'erwhelming 

glow. 

Over  the  gray,  hoar  rocks  the  mercury 
Rushes  in  scarlet  fires,  and  leans  to  wreathe 
The  white  and  purple  asters,  and  to  mix 
Its  gleams  amid  the  many-feathered  weeds. 
By  every  lonely  pool  the  gentian  lifts 
Her  modest  head  in  eloquent  loveliness  ; 
While  here  and   there    some    long-spared 

goldenrod 


autumn.  81 

Still  nods  and  strives  to  glean  an  after 
math 

Of  sunshine.  Russet  stand  the  seeded  ferns, 
And  brown  and  burnt  the  nut-trees ;  every 

hour 

Opens  a  little  more  the  shrouding  burr 
Until  some  wind  in  idle  sport  shall  pass 
To   shake   the    laughing    harvest    to    the 

ground. 

And,  last  of  all  the  maskers  lingering 
At  this  prolonged  feast,  the  solemn  oaks 
Wait  in  their  bronze  and  purple  draperies, 
Whose  tints  through  pearled  distances  do 

melt 

In  a  chromatic  scale  of  color, — wait 
To  see  the  year  a  little  older;  then 
By  one  and  one,   by  leaf  and  twig  and 

branch, 

They  doff  and  gently  rustle  to  their  feet 
The  useless  garments  they  shall  need  no 
more. 

Why  should  we  shrink  where  Nature  never 

shrinks  ? 
Why  should  we  not  take  heart  of  her  whose 

heart 


82  •TOnS  on  tbc  Sea. 

Enfolds  the  germ  of  all  things  ? — dare  to 

stand 

With  spirits  bared  before  the  ineffable  light, 
As  she  against  the  glory  of  the  dawn 
Lifts  naked  arms,  all- welcoming  the  day  ? 
And  then,  with  her,  lie  down  in  quiet  trust 
A  sweet,  brief  space,  beneath  the  coverlet 
Of  the  warm  purifying  snows,  and  sleep 
The  peace  of  these  waste  senses'  parting 

dream, 
A   wondrous    sleep    that    doth   awake   in 

spring. 


WIND   ON   THE   SEA. 

"\17HIP  me  my  chargers — my  chargers 

*  *       that  wait  in  the  bay ! 
For  sluggard  are  they 
With  the  heats  of  the  day. 
They  are  lying  nose-deep  in  the  cooling 

brine, 

Snuffing  the  saltness  up  like  wine, 
Held  of  the  drowsy  drink  supine. 
Never  a  shake  of  the  shaggy  mane, 
Never  a  toss  of  the  tail  again, 


on  tbe  Sea.  83 


Never  a  white  hoof  lifted  plain, 
Never  a  ripple  of  spray  ; 
Only  a  low,  slow,  indolent  side 
Heaving  at  ease  on  the  mid-summer  tide, 
While  the  Nereids  wait  to  ride. 

Whip  me  my  chargers  !     Deal  them  a  mid- 

sea  blow, 

Scourge  them,  and  lo! 
A  flicker  of  snow, 
Of  opal,  of  amber,  of  aquamarine, 
The   amethyst's   flush  and  the  emerald's 

green, 

With  deep,  dark  indigoes  blended  between. 
For  never  was  gem  of  such  irised  glow 
As  my  chargers'  lifted  breasts 
When  they  heave  their  shoulders  and  shake 

their  crests, 

And  turn  at  the  winds'  behests. 
Curbless,  riderless,  wild,  and  free 
As  the  tempest-mothers  whose  foals  they 

be, 

Like  heralds  of  equinox, 
They  rear  themselves  from  the  undulant 

sea, 
Break  and  unite  in  a  reckless  dance 


84 


Each  over  each,  with  their  manes  askance, 
Combing  the  blue  in  their  swift  advance; 
And  where  harbor  with  land  inlocks, 
Fierce  with  the  pulse  of  the  savage  north, 
Nostrils  hissing,  inflamed  and  wroth, 
White  flanks  laved  of  the  churned  froth, 
They  leap  foam-mouthed  on  the  rocks! 

MADRIGALS. 
I. 

BEAR  her  my  love,  sweet  flowers, — my 
very  love 

Of  loves!  For,  through  life's  noon-day 
toil  and  heat, 

My  steadfast  heart  hath  lain  beneath  her 
feet 

Unnoticed.  And  perchance  thy  worth 
may  prove 

My  heart's  prayer,  with  her  image  inter 
wove. 

Bear  her  these  kisses  that  I  press  on  thee; 

She  will  not  know  I  kissed  thee,  so  maybe 

Against  her  own  dear  cheek  thou  mayst  be 
pressed; 


3s 


And  call  those  tremulous  dews  upon  thy 

breast 
Mine  unshed  tears  for  her  long  cruelty. 

II. 

Oh!    the   sweet  glamor  of  her  presence! 

glance, 
And  touch,  and  tones  of  voice,  and  whim- 

sied  arts 
Too  numberless  for  speech,  that  snare  all 

hearts 

Forever!     I  seem  living  in  a  trance 
That  hears  her  voice  in  every  breeze,  and 

plants 

Her  image  on  all  objects,  pure  and  sweet. 
Ah!  were  I  lying  low,  my  race  complete, 
And  over  where  I  slumbered  she  should  pass, 
Methinks  that  as  her  footsteps  crushed  the 

grass 
My  very  dust  must  rise  and  kiss  her  feet! 

III. 

Dear,   though  I  do  not  hear   thy   loving 

speech, 
Nor  see  thy  heart  within  those  fond  eyes 

shine, 


86 


Deeper  than  time  or  separation  reach 

I  feel  thy  love  inevitably  mine. 

My  compline  and  my  matin   prayer  are 

thine,  — 

Thine  image  veiling  every  servile  thing; 
Thou  livest  in  my  heart  as  in  a  shrine 
Where  my  most  secret  thought  comes  wor 

shipping. 

IV. 

To  know  love  is  bringeth  the  full  content. 
Those  outward  things  —  contact  and  sight 

and  speech  — 
Though  they  be  rapture's  self,  can  scarcely 

teach 

A  deeper  meaning  unto  love's  consent; 
They  are  to  knowledge  but  the  complement 
O  Sweet,  we  hold  those  outward  symbols 

less 
Than  that  deep  consciousness  of  inward 

stress, 

And  love  asks  little  of  the  perfect  love. 
So  silence  falling  doth  in  essence  prove 
The  soul's  profoundest  union,  —  fathom 

less! 


<S>  pale  ColD  dfooon.  87 

O   PALE  COLD  MOON. 

OPALE  cold  Moon, 
With    shadowy,     ever    half-averted 
face ; 
Chill  at  the  core  where   fires   should  be 

bright; 
Sweeping    inanimate    through    soundless 

space, 

Thou  seemest  but  a  spectre  of  the  night — 
An  astral  vision  of  long-fled  delight — 
A  passion  spent  too  soon ! 
Tell  me,  against  thy  silent  heart  doth  beat 
No  lingering  note  from  out  the  melody 
Of  that  celestial  tune     . 
Thou  once  went  singing  in  thy  round  com 
plete  ? 

Some  echo  from  the  spheral  choirs  to  cheat 
Time  of  its  vast  stagnation  ?     Or  hast  thou, 
Hast  thou  too  tasted  of  that  numbing  air 
Which  rives  all  joy  of  power  to  quicken, 

saps 

Cinereous  sense  of  sympathy,  and  snaps 
The  live,  tense,  thrilling  cords ;  so  leaving 

thee, 

Hardened  and  dimmed,  a  burned-out  en 
tity, 


88 


Down  through  the  empty  spaces  of  despair 
Emptily  whirling  ? 

O  Moon,  the  mantle  of  thy  silver  zone 
Wraps  all  a  glamored  world  with  phantom 

charm 

Of  frosty  glory  which  can  never  warm 
One  single  germ  to  being;  no,  not  one. 
On  me,  too,  lies  a  superficial  light, 
The  paled  reflection  of  diviner  things, 
But  underneath  the  ash  with  cinder  clings, 
A  colophon  of  blight. 
Moon,  in  thy  hollow  pageant  thou  art  not 

alone  I 


THE  WILL-O'-THE-WISPS. 

"TRIP,  trip, 
1      Slip,  slip, 
Like  a  spark 
Where  the  dark 
Beds  of  ooze 
Lines  confuse 
With  their  gases! 
Forms  surprising, 
Swift  uprising, 


Cbe  m\U*®'*lbe*mteV8.         89 

Rend  the  vapors 
With  their  capers. 
Open  pinions ! — 
We  are  minions 
Of  morasses. 
Flitter,  flutter; 
Nothing  utter; 
Dumb,  dumb; 
Turn  and  twist 
With  the  mist, 
Through  the  masses 
Of  dank  grasses. — 
Lo!  we  come,  we  come! 

Through  the  ditches  and  the  fosses, 
If  a  soul  our  pathway  crosses, 

Woe  to  him,  woe  to  him! 
Nerves  shall  falter,  eyes  grow  dim, 
And  the  vigor  from  its  sources 

Shall  depart  each  limb. 
In  confusion,  in  delusion 
Nothing  seeing,  nothing  heeding 
He  must  follow  all  our  leading. 

Now  surround  him, 

Swift  confound  him, 
Daze  him,  craze  him,  sore  amaze  him, 


90 


All  his  senses  chain! 
Then  advancing,  dancing,  glancing, 
Turning,  shooting,  convoluting, 

Leap  again  —  again! 
So  bewilder  and  deceive  him; 
Then  we  '11   leave   him,  then  we  '11  leave 
him 

To  his  vain  imaginings. 
Thus  we  treat  unwary  mortals 
That  dare  venture  through  our  portals:  — 

We  are  tricksy  things! 

Now  to  cover! 
Sport  is  over, 
Over  is  our  holiday. 
No  remaining, 
Night  is  waning, 
So,  complaining, 
We  must  hurry, 
Worry,  flurry, 
Swift  to  hide  our  play. 
Scour  the  ledges! 
Sweep  the  sedges  — 
Marsh  and  meadow;  — 
Into  shadow 
Hie  away! 


Gbor.tbe  abunDerer.  91 

Flutter,  flicker 
Quicker,  quicker! 
Day  is  waking, 
Dawn  is  breaking, 
Overtaking 
Every  star. 
Faint,  far, 
Fade  from  sight; 
Quite,  quite 
Into  night. 
Out  light! — 
Vanished  we  are! 


THOR   THE    THUNDERER. 

OUT  of  the  North  thou  comest, 
Thor  the  Thunderer! 
Robed  in  thy  cosmic  majesty, 

Thor  the  Thunderer! 
The  winds  from  unknown  voids 
Shall  fillet  thy  brow; 
The  polar  hurricane 
Whirl  in  thy  hair; 

And,  gemming  the  belt  of  thy  power, 
As  a  zone  of  jewels  resplendent, 


92  Gbor  tbe  GbunSerer. 

The  fulminant  clouds  encincture  thee. 

The  heavens  furnish  thy  throne, 

The  mountains  thy  footstool  be; 

As  thou  comest,  insolent,  haughty, 

To  claim  thine  own. 

Thou  shalt  sport  with  the  spheral  Earth, 

The  labor  of  cycles  shake; — 

Toss  the  Earth  as  an  infant's  toy, 

And  she  shall  tremble  before  thee. 

In  her  darkest  caverns 

The  griping  throe  of  fear  shall  pass, 

The  moan  of  travail  be  heard. 

The  deeps  shall  shudder  and  heave, 

Shall  shrink  with  a  prescient  dread 

At  thy  touch,  O  Master  of  Terrors ! 

As  when  from  lairs  remote 

In  the  thorny  wildernesses, 

The  monarch  of  beasts, 

The  mighty  lion,  arousing, 

Leaps  superb  from  his  covert; 

And  shaking  the  mat  of  his  shaggy  mane, 

And  lifting  his  tawny  muzzle  on  high, 

Flings  over  river  and  forest 

His  resonant,  menacing  challenge; 

Every  stricken  creature  that  hears, 

Turning  from  sleep  or  carousal, 


93 


Dripping    the    fear-born    sweat   from    its 

flanks, 

Mouthing  delirious  foam,  — 
Fleeth,  fleeth 

In  panic  it  knoweth  not  whither; 
So  tremble  the  aeons  before  thee, 
So  cowers  the  Earth  at  thy  feet, 
Thor  the  Thunderer! 


THE   VALKYRIER. 

H  BAREST  thou  not  the  maidens  rush 
ing — rushing — 

Swift  through  the  shadowy  night, 
The    rythmic    tread    of     their    plunging 

chargers  crushing 
The  clouds  in  headlong  flight  ? 

Fair  are  they,  of  a  passing  fairness  seem 
ing, 

With  starry  eyes  that  blind; 
The  loosened  bands  of  their  shining  tresses 

streaming 
In  the  wind  which  whirls  behind. 


94 


Strong   are   they,    large-limbed   and  lithe 

and  supple, 

With  coursers  fierce  and  tense; 
The  twain  of  them  a  grand  and  terrible 

couple 
Hurled  through  the  elements. 

Daughters  of  Asgard,  bathed  in  immortal 
fire, 

Forms  of  power  and  grace, 
Immortally  they  ride  with  a  god-like  ire 

Aflame  in  each  upturned  face. 

Oh!  they  must  ride  and  ride  and  naught 

disturb  them; 
Nor  starry  deeps  profound, 
Nor  wastes  of  space  nor  the  whirlwind's 

onslaught  curb  them 
As  they  haste  to  the  fatal  ground. 

Theirs  the  task  'mid  the  savage  stress  of 

battle, 

When  the  valorous  arm  shall  fail; 
When  the  trusty  broadsword  snaps  and  the 

mace-blows  rattle 
On  shivering  links  of  mail; 


95 

Through  hideous  labyrinths,   with  death- 
blood  reeking 

Of  perished  man  and  horse, 
To  pass  with  unscathed  footsteps,  seeking 

— seeking 
The  hero's  stiffening  corse. 

All   silent    they    uplift,    the    prone    form 

placing 

On  the  chafing  charger's  back; 
Then  away,  away! — again  to  their  furious 

racing 
Up  the  heaven's  pathless  track. 

For  aye,  within  the  portals  of  Valhalla, 

He  who  is  nobly  slain, 
Fallen  as  brave  men  fall  in  deeds  of  valor, 

In  glory  lives  again. 

Odin's  own  shall  he  be,  his  favors  tasting, 

Fruits  of  fire  and  sword, 
And  shall  sit  in  well-earned  leisure  grandly 
feasting 

At  the  Gods'  exhaustless  board. 

And  the  maidens   serve.     From  many  a 

regal  flagon, 
In  cups  of  dazzling  ore, 


96 

All  weirdly  wrought  with  scroll  and  rune 

and  dragon, 
The  foaming  mead  they  pour. 

So  evermore  with  sound  of  mighty  wassail 

The  lofty  roof-trees  ring, 
Where  the  great  Gods  sit  with  every  hero 
vassal, 

Supremely  banqueting. 

When  through  the  northern  skies  the  bur 
nished  arrows 
Of  boreal  archers  shoot 
In  a  scintillant  arc  that  swells  and  dips  and 

narrows, 
With  streamers  revolute; 

And  there  falls  a  strange,  unearthly  throb 

and  crackle 

Through  crisping  air  and  frore, 
An  echo  of  fiery  steeds  and  the  hurtling 

tackle 
Of  men  at  deadly  war; 

Know  't  is  the  Valkyr  maidens  swift  ad 
vancing 
Again  up  their  ancient  track, 


Sworfc.  97 


And  the  weapons  of  heroes,  glorified,  and 

glancing 
O'er  a  charmed  zodiac. 


SIEGFRIED'S   SWORD. 

MASTERFUL  gods  have  made  decree 
Whoso  striveth  invincibly 
Semi-god  with  themselves  shall  be; 

Whoso  stands  through  the  nether  strife 
Forging  himself  in  the  darkness  rife 
Graspeth  the  talisman  of  life ! 

Fierce  I  forge  through  the  night  and  dark, 
Lurid  leap  of  the  anvil' d  spark 
Lifting  the  cavern's  tenebrous  arc. 

Out  of  the  gloom  and  grime  and  smutch 
Springeth  the  glory  that  steads  so  much, 
Clod  transmute  at  a  master-touch. 

Blows  but  smite  to  unite  the  whole ; 
There,  a  breath  of  the  living  coal, 
Here,  the  rivets  which  bind  the  soul. 


g8  Siegfried's  SworD. 

Men  may  pass  in  a  world  outside, 
Light  lips  scoffing  unsatisfied, 
Here  by  the  fiery  forge  I  bide 

Wrestling,  sole,  where  no  others  know; 
Stern,  invincible,  blow  by  blow 
Forging  the  brute  world's  overthrow. 

Every  clang  of  the  weltering  steel, 
Every  stroke  on  the  blade  I  deal 
Marks  a  throe  of  the  inward  weal. 

This  for  the  high  thought  held  apart; 
This  for  a  nature  that  beggars  art; 
This  for  the  sign  of  a  stainless  heart; 

This  for  courage  that  knows  no  flinch ; 
This  for  endurance,  inch  by  inch; 
This  for  calm  at  the  final  clinch. 

Out  of  my  solitude,  gloom,  and  grime 
Forge  I  the  tool  of  a  dream  sublime, 
Forge  I  the  sword  that  shall  vanquish  Time. 

Poignant,  flexible,  flame-endued, 
See  it  flash  from  its  sheathing  rude — 
Flash  in  the  hand  that  knows  it  good — 


(Htbonus.  99 

Hot  from  the  spirit's  armories; 

Fruit  of  my  heart,  of  my  handcraft,  this 

Greater  than  Thor  with  his  hammer  is ! 

Systems  shall  fall — a  universe  rock; 

This  shall  cleave  through  the  cyclic  shock 

Bringing  to  all  things  their  Ragnerok. 

Spelled  am  I  in  immutable  youth, 

Girt  with  the  weapon  of  god-like  sooth: — 

Lo!  the  sword  I  have  forged  is  Truth! 


TITHONUS. 

AN    AUTUMN    ODE. 

A  LAS,  Tithonus! 
**     What  dost  thou  here  where  all  the 

world  is  dead, 
And  all  the  summer  paeans  have  passed 

away, 

And  through  the  clouding  day 
The  singers  upon  south-bound  wings  have 

fled:— 

What  dost  thou  here  ? 
Lo!  all  the  earth  is  naked,  bald  and  sere. 


ioo 


In  covert  damps  that  bear  the  wood-beasts 

print 
The  star-weed  withers  with  the  fragrant 

mint; 

And  on  the  gusty  breeze 
Pale,   downy  seed-wings   scud  to  farther' 

leas. 

One  single  reedy  head 
Stands  like  a  rattling  phantom  at  the  gate 
Of  summer,  where  the  sweet  days  lingered 

late. 

A  frosty  vapor  veils  the  shining  hills, 
And  all  the  solitary  lowland  chills. 
From   far   away   there   steals  a  shivering 

breath, 

A  single  note  of  sorrow  unforgot, 
A  still,  pervasive,  brooding  hint  of  death:  — 
But  thou  —  thou  heedest  not. 

Thou  heedest  not,  Tithonus  !     All  too  soon 
The  frore  spear  pierceth  through  thy  sum 

mer  sheath; 

Upon  the  faded  sward  thou  liest  prone. 
And  who  shall  count  the  wealth  that  thou 

hast  known 
Of  glutted  golden  hours,  so  full,  so  full 


Of  the  rich  shows  of  life — fleet,  beautiful  ? 

So  full  of  idle  sport  and  idler  song, 

So  crowded  with  delights  the  whole  day 

long 
Thou  couldst  not  dream  of  ending,  no,  nor 

think 
Life  kept  a  hemlock  draught  for  thee  to 

drink; 

Nor  yet  divine — this  frozen  midnight  o'er — 
Earth  should  awake  once  more. 

And  we,  Tithonus, 

What  have  we,  vagrants,  more  than  thou 

to  show 

For  all  the  plenitude  of  summer's  glow  ? 
What  have  we  garnered  from  our  golden 

prime 

Of  that  potential  promise  which  low-lies 
Beneath  the  song  and  dance  and  all  which 

dies, — 
That   flowering   of  the  spirit,   sweet   and 

wise  ? 
Have  we  not  lived,  like  thee,  a  transient 

hour 
Creatures  of  chance  and  ignorant  of  our 

dower, 


102 


So  that  when  Autumn  turns  her  sombre 

page 

We  have  no  guerdon  but  the  pains  of  age  ? 
Ah  me,  Tithonus! 
Are  we  not  also  Prodigals  of  Time  ? 


WAKING. 

IT  is  as  if  my  soul  had  slumbering  lain 
A  senseless  cumbrance;    as,  wrapped 

in  strange  calm, 

In  ancient  crypts  those  little  seeds  of  grain 
For  aeons  have  slept  in  duskiness  and 

balm. 

Yet  when  men  feed  them  to  the  fecund  soil 
They  burst  at  once  in  leaf  and  bud  and 
coil. 

None  dream  the  years  they  lay  quiescent 

there ; 
Kingdoms  have  crumbled  since  they  fell 

asleep, 
Awaiting  for  the  single  breath  of  air, 

The  single  fervid  touch  of  sun,  to  leap 
From  death-trance  in  a  long-forgotten  tomb 
Into  a  living  joy  of  leaf  and  bloom. 


Question.  103 

And  I  have  wakened.     Oh!  I  cannot  know 
Whether  my  soul  shall  bear  or  bud  or 
flower; 

I  only  feel  the  surging  life-blood  flow, 
I  only  live  my  joy  from  hour  to  hour. 

It  is  enough  the  sun  hath  breathed  to  rive 

My  slumb'rous  death,  and  that  I  am  alive! 


QUESTION. 

T  T  OW  does  my  soul  know  God  ?     How, 
*  *      'neath  the  roof 

O'er  wintry  waters  cast, 
Do  torpid  creatures  that  wait  in  the  frozen 
cloof 

Know  that  the  sun  hath  passed 
Unseen  its  vernal  line  ?     And  suddenly 

River  and  silent  pool 

Are  overflowing,  like  whirled  sands  in  the 
sea, 

With  new  life  wonderful. 

How   does   my    soul    know   God  ?     How 

does  the  moth 
Feel  a  tremble  of  power, 


104         Gafce  f>ert  IrtnD  Deatb* 

Folded  close  in  its  dusky  cocoon  cloth; 

Know  its  appointed  hour, 
And   somehow — somehow — wrestling  film 
by  film, — 

Loosing  them  every  one, 
Break  ecstatic  into  the  daylight's  realm, — 

Into  the  fostering  sun  ? 


TAKE  HER,  KIND  DEATH. 

*"TAKE   her,    kind   Death,  take   all  the 
*       mortal  part, 
Consume   the  clogging  robes  that  round 

her  cling, 

Unlock  the  fleshly  gyves,  so  wearying, 
And  lift  the  suffocation  from  her  heart! 
We,  who  have  watched  the  chill  of  anguish 

start, 

Have  had  no  vital  balm,  no  offering 
So    healing    as    thy   subtle    touch    could 

bring; 

Most  merciful  of  all  her  friends  thou  art. 
Ah  woe!  that  such  unfit,  mis-serving  shell 
Could  cage  that  crystal,  winged  thing — her 

soul, 


Sonnet*  105 

Beating  its  prison  bars  rebelliously; 
Yet  joy!  for  Death's  unfailing  miracle — 
Kind  Death,  whose  other  name  is  Love-in- 
dole— 
And  that  she  is  alive  and  soareth  free! 


SONNET. 

WITH    A    BUNCH    OF    ARBUTUS. 

"pvEAR  Heart,  these  flowers  that  I  offer 
*-^     you 

Shall    stand   for   emblems    of    you;    shy 

and  sweet, 

Modest  and  tender-hearted,  fresh  and  true, 
They   come,   the   harbingers    of    life,    to 

greet 

The  spring.     Securely  in  their  low  retreat 
They    bloom,  beneath    the    dead    leaves 

and  the  dew, 

To  tell  us  winter's  rule  is  obsolete, 
And  the  glad  year  in  hope  is  born  anew. 
So  into  life's  drear,  wintry  days,  oppressed 
With  sordid  cares,  and  worn  with  hidden 

pain, 
You  come  like  the  arbutus  flowers,  dressed 


io6  Summer 


In  spring's  dear  tones,   to   bid   us   hope 

again. 
You  touch  your  full,  fresh  nature  to  all 

cares, 
And  who  beneath  your  smile  shall  think 

of  tears  ? 


SUMMER  MIDNIGHT. 

SILENT  the  slumb'rous  field  and  forest 
lie; 

Silent  the  hamlet  with  its  human  freight; 
Only  the  cricket's  chirrup,  that  so  late 
Doth  keep  at  his  midsummer  revelry. 
Silent  and  scintillating  far  on  high, 
Ciphers  of   love   that  beggareth  scale  or 

date, 

The  countless  stars  sit  panoplied  in  state 
Against  the  dusk,  illimitable  sky. 
Peace,  solitude  and  dark, — and  I  alone, 
Alone  in  all  the  glory  worshipping! 
I  hear  upon  the  stillness,  one  by  one, 
The  midnight  hours  musically  ring. 
A  day  is  born,  a  day  is  dead  and  done; — 
Darkness  and  death  whereout  the  dawn 

shall  spring. 


&mong  tbe  /IBountains.          107 
AMONG  THE  MOUNTAINS. 

"THOU  'RT  like  the  mountains,  love; 
*       these  haughty  heights 

That  sentinel  our  valley,  as  a  guard 
Of  star-eyed  Titans,  whose  strong  footstep 

frights 

The  hidden  deeps  as  it  drops  earthen- 
ward, 
Yet  whose  great  brows  do  seem  to  lift  the 

sky; 

Who  nurture  in  their  bosoms  tenderly — 
Warm  with  a  mother's  touch — the  mystic 

hum 
Of  winged  things,  the  fountain's  throe 

of  birth, 

The  wedded  fragrances  that  overcome 
The  sense,  and  all  life-essence  of  the 
earth. 

O  most  mysterious  mountains:     How  full 

oft 
I  watch   them,    staunch   yet   swept   by 

change  on  change! 
How  loves  my   brooding   soul   to   search 

aloft 


io8  Bmong  tbe 


And  find  them  always  same  yet  always 

strange  ! 

Lo!  how  their  wooded  limbs  a  little  while 
Do  seem  to  stretch  themselves  and  drink 

the  smile 

Of  the  warm  sunshine  poured  in  every  hid 
Recess  and  shade;  they  have  no  secrets 

now, 
But,  like  a  waking  infant,  lie  amid 

The    strenuous    warmth   of   their   own 
living  glow. 

How  frown  they  now,  when  the  stern  storm 

down-broods 
Darkling  with  savage  and  unutterable 

thought, 

And  all  the  purple  steeps  and  solitudes 
Sweeps    into    sullen    blackness,    over 

wrought 
Of  coming  woe!     Through  many  a  forest 


Strange    voices    moan   and   moan  ;    now 

tossed  boughs  snap, 
And  great  trunks  writhe  and  shudder,  as 

the  hush 
Is  broken  by  the  tempest's  furious  rout; 


Bmong  tbc  flBountafns.          109 

The  engulfing,  wind-driven  cloud,  the  roar, 

the  rush 

Of  whirlwinds ; — and  the  hills  are  blotted 
out! 

But  I  have   known   them   in   a  tenderer 

guise 
When  filmy,  rose-tipped  mists  engirdle 

them, 
And  on  their  peaceful  breast  the  long  day 

dies, 

With    twilight    zephyrs   whispering   re 
quiem. 

There  is  a  lucent  shimmer  through  the  air 
That  scarce  is  light,  yet  ever  seems  to  wear 
Semblance   of   light,  from   the  far,  rock- 
crowned  crest 
That  the  departing  sunbeam  last  hath 

kissed, 

To  where  the  valley  nestles  into  rest 
Through  a  still  dream  of  pearl  and  ame 
thyst. 

Now   soft   the  dusky-robed  Night  down- 
slips, 

And   all   the    land    with    mystery    she 
drapes. 


no  Bn  11  Dgl  of  $une. 


Within  the  solemn,  shadowy  eclipse, 

The   mountains   wait  —  vast,   elemental 

shapes  — 

Expectant,  underneath  the  heavenly  dome 
That    overspans    in    measureless     mono 

chrome, 

Where,  one  and  one,  on  altars  all  unseen, 
Strange  lights  do  glimmer  forth  ;  till,  bit 

by  bit, 

The  void  is  diademed  with  starry  sheen  ;  — 
And  in  the  temple  all  the  lamps  are  lit! 

AN  IDYL  OF  JUNE. 

T    IE  here  with  me  amid  the  grass, 
J-*     Up-gazing  through  the  trees, 
And  watch  the  clouds  in  solemn  mass 
Like  a  processional  pass  and  pass 

With  snowy  draperies. 
And  we  will  breathe  the  waftings  pure 
Exhaled  from  locust  bloom  and  clover, 
And  tinier,  grass-enfolded  flowers,  — 
Steal  out  their  souls  and  make  them  ours  ; 
And  in  their  forfeiture 

Of  self,  new  self  discover. 
The  bees  shall  lull  us, 


Bn  1  &Bl  of  June,  m 

As  here  and  there  they  drone 
With  drowsy  undertone 
From  sweet  to  sweet,  shall  dull  us 
Into  harmonious  tune  of  perfect  hours. 
The  lordly  wind  shall  sweep  our  faces 

As  if  he  only  grudging  kissed 
A  human  lip  ere  to  wild  spaces 
He  fled  to  keep  immortal  tryst. 

Not  so  fast,  sweet  wind,  hie  thee  not, 
The  sprites  of  the  air  will  spy  thee  not, 

Nor  the  elves  in  the  thickets  harry; 
Thy  dryad  will  sure  deny  thee  not, 

If  a  half,  half  moment  thou  tarry 
With  the  snows  of  thy  pinions  to  fan  us, 
Where,  high  and  high,  in  the  sky,  over- 
span  us 

The  arches  of  locust  trees. 

The  sun  shall  brood  down  as  it  please, 
Till  the  delicate  foliage  glisters 
In  golds  and  bronzes,  mate  to  mate, — 
Till  the  whole  wide  arch  is  irradiate 

With  tremulous,  fairy  vistas! 

And  the  little  leaves  dance, 

And  the  little  leaves  glance 

With  their  heads  askance, 


n2  Bn  TfDgl  ot  June. 

In  a  soft  sun-dance; 
And   quiver   and   gleam   and  droop   and 

shimmer 

Against  the  radiant  skies, 
As  if  ripe  June  had  quaffed  him  a  brim 
mer, 

And  let  the  sun-fire  through  his  eyes 
Leap  out,  to  rule  all  the  world  June-wise! 

In  the  god-commune, 

When  the  gods  made  June, 
They  undertook 

To  utter  the  perfect  thought. 
When  they  made  the  trees  and  shook 
The  dawn  through  the  bloom,  they  wrought 

Better  than  man  conceives; 
For  they  left  their  spirit  caught 

In  the  heart  of  the  locust  leaves. 
And  they  laid  a  spell  on  the  solitude 

That  never  a  black  world-taint 

Should  fall,  and  the  mind  should  paint 
Only  the  infinite  rest  and  the  infinite  good. 
Not  a  breath  of  the  world  outside — 

Its  folly  and  shame,  its  strife  and  pride, 

Its  soul-flights  mocked  and  its  love  de 
nied — 


Xove  Is  3Lffce  tbe  Dawn  of  Dag.  113 

Not  a  breath  of  the  world  outside 
Was  breathed  in  our  nook; 
It  is  always  high-summer  noon. 
One    could    almost    count,    through    the 

dreamy  heat, 
In  the  pulse  of  the  languid  land, 

Each  soft  heart-beat; — 
It  needs  but  a  touch  of  the  hand, — 

We  shall  understand. 
In  our  hearts  and  our  charmed  nook 
It  shall  always  reign  June! 


MY  LOVE  IS  LIKE  THE  DAWN  OF 
DAY. 

JV/l  Y  love  is  like  the  dawn  of  day, 

*  "  *     One  tender  flush  athwart  the  gray, 

A  hint  of  promise  far  away. 

My  love  is  like  the  nestling  bird 

Who  flies  not  though  its  wings  are  stirred, 

Soft  tunes  its  throat  yet  speaks  no  word. 

My  love  is  like  the  budding  rose; 
Beneath  the  petals,  folded  close, 
The  hidden  heart  divinely  grows. 


ii4  Circumstance. 

The  flower  will  bloom,  the  bird  will  sing; 
At  noon  comes  glorious  harvesting, — 
And  I  can  wait  the  summer  of  spring! 


CIRCUMSTANCE. 

SHE    should    have    answered   "No"; 
but,  low-inclined, 

The  stfady  branches  rustled  overhead ; 
They   saw,   atween   the  trunks,  the  river 

wind, 

And  near,  the  unmowed  meadows  whis 
pered. 
The  yellow   sky  and  shimmering  clouds 

seemed  wed ; 
The  sensuous   summer  wind  with  soft 

caress 
Swept  by  and  kissed  her  cheek  and  left  it 

red; 

go — sudden  moved — she  turned  and  an 
swered  '.'  Yes." 


Danube  J6oat*Sona,  us 

THE  FULNESS  OF  TIME. 

"\  I J HEN  the  seeds  were  ready,  one  by 
*  *       one, 

Through  the  earth  they  broke; 
When  the  bud  was  ready,  lo !  the  sun 

Touched  it,  and  it  woke. 

When  the  heart  was  ready,  half  a  breath 

Rent  the  veil  it  wore; 
When  the  soul  was  ready,  loving  Death 

Oped  a  wider  door. 


DANUBE  BOAT-SONG. 

\1  7E  row  and  row, 
*  *  And  as  we  go 

Our  choral  song  deliver; 
In  state  and  pride 
Our  barge  we  guide 

Adown  the  Danube  River. 

Behold  arise 
Through  western  skies 
Great  lights  to  charm  forever, 


6   'Qin&f ne's  farewell  to  IbulDebranD. 

The  sunset's  beam 
Doth  paint  the  stream 
Adown  the  Danube  River. 

The  wind  blows  chill 

O'er  marsh  and  hill, 
The  sweet  lights  fade  and  shiver; 

They  fade  and  shift, 

And  still  we  drift 
Adown  the  Danube  River. 


UNDINE'S     FAREWELL    TO    HUL- 
DEBRAND. 

S~\  LOVE,    mine   own,    farewell  —  it   is 
^-^     mine  hour; 
The  bird  within  the  hedge  hath  ceased 

to  sing, 
The  violet   hath   bloomed  and   shed   her 

flower, 
The  summer  hastes  to  sweep  away  the 

spring. 
Yet  is  the   fragrance  on   the  breeze  not 

dead, 
Yet  is  the  echo  of  the  song  not  fled, 


farewell  to  fMil&ebranfc.    117 


For  nothing  wholly  pure  can  pass  away; 

The  violet's  breath  is  on  the  asphodel, 
And    in   the  autumn   flames  the  spring's 
display.  — 

O  my  beloved  one,  farewell,  farewell! 

Of  life  love  is  controller  and  bestower, 
Of  death  love  is   the  answer   and   the 

king! 
I  leave  with   thee  my   love   in   deathless 

dower  ; 
The  fateful  rounds  of  time  shall  ever 

bring 

The  perfume  of  the  flower  to  thee  unshed, 
The  glory  of  the  dawn  untarnished  ;  — 
For  thou  art  ever  mine  !     Though  I  obey 
The  outward   touch,  my  soul   doth  with 

thee  stay, 

For  love  is  life-in-love  inseparable, 
And  not  the  fervid  dream  which  lasts  a 

day.  — 
O  my  beloved  one,  farewell,  farewell  ! 


us  Gbe 

THE  PARC^E. 

"  I  hear  the  Parcae  reel 

The  threads  of  man  at  their  humming  wheel, 
The  threads  of  life  and  power  and  pain." 

— EMERSON. 

SPIN,  Sisters,  spin!     From  blossom  to 
decay; 

From  dawn  to  night,  in  perfect  counter 
part; 
Through  passion  and  denial,  peace,  affray; 

Through  love,  and  pain  its  twin ; 
Through  conquering  weakness  ;    through 

destroying  strength ; 
And  every   pulse   that   rules    the    human 

heart 

Mete  out  to  each  his  pre-ordained  length. — 
Spin,  Sisters,  spin! 


Spin  and  then  cleave.     Why   should  our 

touch  relax 

A  faintest  jot  for  any  seeming  jars 
Of  lower  spheres,  whose  frail  convulsions 

wax 
To  wane  as  naught  had  been  ? 


Gbe  jparcas*  ng 

For  we,  the  embodying  measure  of  the  law, 
Standing  impassive  on  the  eternal  stars, 
Behold  the  perfect  sequence  evermore. 
Spin,  Sisters,  spin! 

Why  should  we  pause  ?     Mote  in  an  uni 
verse, 

Man  dreams  to  shape  the    ages   as   they 
move 

To  his  own  ends, — create — subdue — dis 
perse,— 
And,  like  a  harlequin 

Of  Time,  gaze  inchwise  through  the  mystic 
murk; 

And  set  a  cipher  here  or  there  to  prove 

Immutable  law  his  puerile  handiwork. 

Spin,  Sisters,  spin! 

O  self-befooled!     Withholden  are  his  ears 
From  the  high   thunders  that  attune  his 

earth 
Unto  the  choiring  of  rolling  spheres 

In  vast,  supernal  din. 
Law  shapeth  him  —  compelling  —  passing 

by; 
His  very  essence  law; — or  seeming  birth, 


120 


Or  seeming  death,  alike  of  mystery. 

Spin,  Sisters,  spin! 

He  is  and  is  not.     Wind-swept  vapor-drift 
Across  the  bosom  of  a  mountain  chain  — 
Wherethrough  great  peaks  their  frowning, 

fronts  uplift,  — 
That,  shivering  out  and  in, 
Melts  and  is  gone.     And  fountains  down 

ward  lave, 
And,  o'er   the  crags  that   unsubdued  re 

main, 
Frail  flowers  spring,    and  mighty   forests 

wave. 

Spin,  Sisters,  spin! 

In  shifting  semblances  and  changeful  form 
The     Eternal    fashioneth;     naught    may 

endure 
Save  the  Eternal.     Worlds  on  worlds  of 

storm 

Sweep  not  a  breath  within, 
Where  the  life  leapeth  in  a  flame  divine, 
Enfolded  in  its  protean  garniture, 
Till  Thought  arise  to  penetrate  the  shrine. 
Spin,  Sisters,  spin! 


fcarcse.  121 


There  is  no  new  nor  old.     'T  is  Thought 

unlocks 
The    chambered    labyrinth  ;    with    slow 

success 

Reading  the  oracle  in  paradox; 
Learns  where  all  things  begin 
They   find   completion   too;   the   circling 

Light 

Evoking  Entity  from  Nothingness 
To  move  —  and  change  —  in  order  infinite. 
Spin,  Sisters,  spin! 

There  is  no  new  nor  old;  and  Time  clasps 

hands 

With  Time  across  the  lapsed  centuries. 
Thought  evermore  with  kindred  Thought 

commands, 
Fits  end  to  origin; 
And  seons  rolled   o'er  dead   that   is   not 

dead 

Sift  but  the  ashes  —  let  the  Phoenix  rise! 
Then    spin  —  and    cleave—  the   temporary 

thread!— 

Spin,  Sisters,  spin! 


i22        n  Sgmpbonfi  of  tbe  frtlte, 
A  SYMPHONY  OF  THE  HILLS. 

HTHE  radiant  midsummer  days  with  all 
*       their  wealth  are  here! 
There  is  a  virtue  in  the  time,  a  spell  upon 

the  year. 
The  sun  on  charmed  orbit  his  appointed 

period 
Doth    run,    his   largesse    flinging    like   a 

charioted  God. 
There  is   a  glory  in  the  dawn  no  other 

season  knows, 
A  grace  upon  the  eventide,  a  largeness  of 

repose, 
A  fulness  in  the  ardent  toil  that  brings  the 

night  too  soon, 
A  zest  that  makes  the  sinew  strong  and 

keeps  the  heart  in  tune ! 

As  one  upon  the  margin  of  some  seques 
tered  pool, 

Within  its  watery  mirror — placid  and  won 
derful— 

In  idle  mood  a  stone  should  cast  and  watch 
the  eddies  break 

With  ever-widening  circles,  each  swift  to 
overtake 


B  Sgmpbone  of  tbe  1>ill0*        123 

The  ripple  of  remoter  ones  till  lost  beyond 
the  gaze; 

So,  from  near,  over-towering  heights  to 
where  the  mellow  haze 

With  tints  of  evanescence  the  pearled  dis 
tance  fills, 

Lie,  heaped  in  glad  confusion,  the  multi 
tude  of  hills. 


They  lie  in  smiling  company,   and  hold 

within  their  arms 
A  world  of  nestling  villages   and   breezy 

upland  farms. 
Here,  miles  of  sombre  forest  in  blue-black 

shadow  sleep, 
And,    yonder,    wastes    of   pasturage   the 

broken  hillsides  sweep. 
How  fair,  in  genial  sunshine  steeped,  lies 

every  furrowed  row 
Of  harvest-laden  tillage  land !    And,  lazily, 

below 

Outspread  the  dappled  meadows,  where 
through  with  shining  trail 
The  brawling  mountain  rivulets  wind  down 

the  intervale. 


124        B  SgmpbottB  of  tbe  Ibilte. 

Across  a  waste  of  azure,  in  many  a  shim 
mering  rift 

Flushed  by  the  warm,  midsummer  suns, 
the  idle  vapors  drift 

And  drift  in  spumy  masses  that  merge  and 
redivide, 

Like  flecks  of  foam  upcast  from  some  re 
mote  and  refluent  tide. 

How  from  the  far  horizon  the  shifty,  sen 
suous  breeze 

Stirs  with  its  pattering  whisper  the  leafage 
of  the  trees, 

And  toys  with  myriad  sunbeams  that  flick 
ering  downward  fling 

A  maze  of  golden  broidery  on  the  green 
sward  carpeting! 


The  meadow-lark,  rejoicing,  springs  from 

his  hidden  sedge, 
While    the    sparrow's    cheerful     greeting 

wakes  every  wayside  hedge. 
What  chorus  in  the  orchard! — hear  how 

the  measure  trolls 
From    vireo    and    bluebird    and    golden 

orioles! 


B  SgntpbonB  of  tbe  1)1110.        125 

The  robin  in  his   arrogant   and   anxious 

fatherhood, 
Chirps  noisily  from  branch  to  branch  to 

lure  his  callow  brood; 
And  through  the  shadowy  forest  amid  the 

twilight's  hush, 
Breathe,  like  a  last  thanksgiving,  the  flut- 

ings  of  the  thrush. 


The  cattle  grazing  on  the  slopes  beneath 

the  searching  sun 

Draw  down  into  the  bosky  dells  and  hol 
lows,  one  by  one; 
And    where,     with    purling    undertones 

through  many  a  ferny  nook 
And  web  of  flag  and   flower-de-luce,  low 

sings  a  little  brook, 
They,  drinking,  tramp  the  muddy  marge, 

then  midway  in  the  stream 
Stand  fetlock  deep  with  drowsy  eyes  and 

ruminating  dream; 
Until  athwart  the  umbrage  the  farm-boy's 

call  is  heard, 
When  they  wind  adown  the  grass-grown 

lane,  a  placid  homeward  herd. 


126       B  SgmpbonB  of  tbe  f)ilte. 

The   unctuous  soil  a  treasury  reveals  of 

coming  crops; 
Already  high  the  nodding  grain  the  tender 

grass  o'ertops; 
Here  vetch  low-droops,  full-fruited,  folded 

in  shining  sheath; 
There  clambering  beans  festoon  their  poles 

with  wild,  luxuriant  wreath. 
And  lo !  where  lines  of  lusty  corn — a  ban 
nered  army — stand, 
While  lush  and  trailing  esculents  lie  rathe 

along  the  land. 
All  lustful  for  possession,  ill  weeds  against 

them  grow, 
But   there   's   Nemesis   upon    them,  with 

swift-avenging  hoe! 


0  acres  of  wind-shotted  and  undulating 

grass, 
Your  sentence  is  upon   you, — I   see   the 

mowers  pass; 
While  up  from  every  meadow  where  the 

bobolink  sang  blithe, 

1  hear  the  swish  of  following  swaths,  the 

music  of  the  scythe. 


8  Ssmpbons  of  tbe  t>tU0.        127 

The  cocks  are  raked  or  shaken  sheer  with 

dext'rous  overplay, 
And  all  the  air  comes  laden  with  the  scent 

of  new-mown  hay ; 
Till    through    the    lengthening   shadows, 

drawn  by  the  stolid  ox, 
The  wain,  high-piled  with  harvest,  sedately 

creaks  and  rocks 


Adown  the  sinuous  highway :  and  home  at 

last  is  here, 
A  cottage  nest  betwixt  the  hills,  a  harbor 

of  good  cheer. 
The  ample  barn  is  fragrant  with  the  breath 

of  champing  kine, 
As  the  milker  with  his  pail  and  stool  wends 

up  and  down  the  line. 
Outside  the  generous  door-yard  spreads, — 

a  wealth  of  velvet  green 
Crowned  by  the  over-arching  elm  that  six- 
score  years  hath  seen, 
Where  the  farm-folk  from  the  amplitude 

and  well-filled  tasks  of  day 
Shall  gather  in  the  gloaming  to  watch  the 

children  play. 


128        a  SBnipbong  of  tbe 

O  dwellers  in  the  fetid  towns,  cramped  by 

your  sordid  need, 
The  breath  of  wood  and  pasture  land  shall 

make  you  live  indeed! 
A  pavement  is  no  resting-place  for  worn 

and  weary  feet, 
They  need  the  fresh,   elastic  sward,  the 

touch  of  blossoms  sweet. 
Arise  and  claim  your  freedom,  shake  off 

the  servile  dust, 
And   take  your  place  in   Nature's  arms, 

compelling  and  august. 
What  though  the  labor  still  seem  long — the 

guerdon  hardly  won  ? 
No  man  is  really  poor  who  owns  the  fresh 

air  and  the  sun. 


She  shall  not  give  you  unearned  gifts  nor 

hoards  of  useless  gold, 
But   every   day   the   miracle   of  budding 

things  unfold; 
And  every  day  in  stintless  light,  in  rushing 

winds  confest, 
And   deep,    inevitable  growths,   her  God 

make  manifest. 


B  SgmpbonE  of  tbe  Ibilte.        129 

Your  franchise  shall  be  space  to  breathe 
and  motive  to  expand 

In  body  and  in  spirit,  till  both  shall  under 
stand 

Her  open  book,  where  all  may  read  in 
singleness  of  heart 

Of  beauty  and  of  love  and  life  without  a 
slur  of  art. 


Betwixt  the  verdure-robed  earth  and  man, 

her  child,  a  bond 
There  is — a  fine  affinity,  which  unto  things 

beyond 
Material  ends  of  toil  attains,  and  links  him 

fast  and  sure 
Through  the  semblances  that  pass  away  to 

the  meanings  that  endure. 
He  hears  the  deep  evangel  that  underlies 

all  toil, 
The  word  that  breathes  alike  from  wind- 

driv'n  cloud  or  procreant  soil; 
The  dawn  bestows  a  promise  that  the  dewy 

night  fulfils, 

And  life  grows  sweet  beneath  the  benedic 
tion  of  the  hills. 


iso      <5o  not.  Hong  Summer 
GO  NOT,  LONG  SUMMER  DAY. 

GO  not,  long  summer  day,  oh,   go  not 
yet! 
Spread  out  your  wings  for  me  a  moment 

more ! 

The  sedges  with  the  flooding  tide  are  wet, 

The  sunset  links  the  river  shore  to  shore. 

Across   the   uplands  birds   are  twittering 

still, 

Home-coming  kine  are  lowing  far  away; 
Their  destiny  and  mine  thou  must  fulfil 
Ere  thou  depart, — oh,  linger  still,  sweet 
day! 

Faintly  I  hear  the  far,  far  village  bells, 
Scarce  note  the  passing  shadows  on  the 

shore ; 
With  me  nothing  against  the  silence  tells 

Except  the  quiet  dipping  of  the  oar. 
A   look  —  a   clasp  of  hands  —  a   rushing 

thought 

That  needs  no  words  to  read  it  as  I  may, 
And  oh!    my  heart  the  sunset  hues  has 

caught! — 
Then  linger  by  me  yet,  beloved  day! 


/fconaDnocfc  Crowned.  131 

TO    A    ROSE    CAST    UPON    A 
STREAM. 

DRIFT  by,  sweet  flower,  drift  by,  fair 
flower, 

Borne  purposeless  upon  the  tide; 
Because  I  clasped  thee  for  an  hour 
Against  my  heart  and  felt  thy  power, 
Shall  but  thy  thorn  abide  ? 

Thy  perfume,  vague  and  dream-beset, 
Could  not  remain  unshed  a  day; 

In  thee  the  thorn  and  bloom  were  met; 

The  love  and  pain,  both,  I  forget; — 
Lie  there  and  drift  away. 


MONADNOCK  CROWNED. 

SAVAGE  supreme  and  lone,  he  reared 
his  head— 
A   darkling   shape  —  through    the    thin 

upper  air; 

His  drapery  the  conifers,  but  bare 
The  great  brow  gloomed,  stern  and  rock- 
filleted. 


132  tffoonaDnocfc  Crownel). 

Clustered  around  the  lesser  hills  lay  spread, 
Dwarfed  by  his  greatness,  and,  all  un 
aware, 
Seeming  to  shrink  aside  and  leave  him 

there, 

A  regnant  presence — beautiful  and  dread'. 

Like  some  immense  disfeatured  tapestry, 

Shorn  of  its  splendors,  neutral-hued  and 

dull, 
The  great  cloud-weftage  hung  against  the 

sky 

In  moveless  mass,  sombre  and  sorrowful; 
As,  shivering  with  the  late  wind's  unre- 

pose, 

The   waning   day   sped    hasting    to   its 
close. 

Then  up  the  vacuous  dusk  went   gently 

stealing 

A  tender  premonition,  life-endued, 
Purfling  the  veil  with  rifts  all  glory-hued, 
Wherethrough  the  hidden  sun,  in  broad 

shafts  wheeling, 

The  fountains  of  his  being  swift  unsealing, 
Brake  like  a  god;  and  poured  his  molten 
flood 


133 

Over  the  shaggy    shape    that,    waiting, 

stood 

Transfigured  'neath  the  radiant  revealing. 

Down  every  ridge  and  hollow  fiery  mist 

Fled   with  transmuting  touches;    here  to 

fold 

A  mantling  film  of  sun-shot  amethyst, 
There,  leave  a  frowning  precipice  aureol'd, 
And  ail-where  grace  ineffable  disclose, 
As  the  glad  day  stole  lingering  to  its 
close. 


JETSAM. 
A  FTER  the  tempest,  chill  and  wan  and 

**   gray» 

Awearily    came    dawn.      Still,    dusky- 
dense, 

The  gathered  vapors  like  a  pall  immense 
Blotted  against  the  hid  horizon  lay, 
Where  with  a  moan  the  spent  winds  sank 

away. 

Huge  weltering  surges,  sated  with  a  sense 
Of  outworn  rage,  in  turbid  refluence 
Heaved  heavily,  with  fitful  gusts  of  spray ; 


134  Bvensong. 

Or  flung  foam-wreaths  along  the  crinkled 

sands, 
Where  — past   all  storm   or  lull   or  vital 

needs — 

Lay,   face  upturned,  and   stark,  close- 
clinched  hands, 

A  human  form  amid  the  ooze  and  weeds. 
While,  as  with  shy,  mute  requiem  for  the 

dead, 
A  single  gull  swept  softly  overhead. 


EVENSONG. 

hands,  Love;  wherefore  should 
we  fear 

To  travel  down  the  twilight  way  ? 
We  who  through  many  an  arduous  year 
Have  jointly  borne  the  heats  of  day  ? 

There  comes  a  peace  at  eventide — 
A  calm  which  floods  the  waiting  soul 

With  images  so  vast,  so  wide, 
It  cannot  yet  perceive  the  whole. 

A  calm  which  deeper  insight  brings, 
And  where  the  heart  no  longer  strives, 


progression*  135 

For,  through  the  passing  of  all  things, 
We  know,  we  know  that  love  survives. 

Clasp  hands ! — our  goal  is  manifest. 

The  sweet  lights  fade  across  the  lea, 
The  wind  sleeps  on  the  evening's  breast, 

The  ebbing  tide  slips  to  the  sea; — 
So  we — so  we! 


PROGRESSION. 

V\7HEN  my  time  comes,  may  I  so  gently 
*  *       pass 

I  shall  not  stir  this  life-round  wonderful ; 

Like  flicker  of  soft  wind  o'er  summer  grass, 

Or  dip  of  pebble  dropped  in  some  deep 

pool. 
May  the  white  clouds,    high-piled,    drift 

slowly  o'er, 

Pregnant  with  inspiration,  and  so  take 
My  winnowed  spirit  to  some  farther  shore, 
Nor  leave  behind  a  silence  nor  an  ache. 

Lament  me  not,  beloved,  shed  no  tear 
Because  of  cession  of  the  finite  powers; 


is6         Wespecs  ot  tbe  Ibermtts. 

Lay  only  happy  thoughts  upon  my  bier, 
And  hope  and  love,  which  are  immortal 

flowers ; 
Knowing  I  have  departed  not,  but  thus 

Do  but  assume  a  finer  medium 
To  make  a  little  space  more  luminous 
For  thy  dear  feet  to  tread  when  thou 
dost  come. 


VESPERS  OF  THE  HERMITS. 

AT  evening,  through  the  twilight's  soli 
tude, 

With    the    environing    hills    all   worship 
ping, 

Within  the  border  of  a  little  wood 
I  heard  the  thrushes  sing. 

A  lonely  place  it  was,  scarce  ever  trod 
Save    as    some    shy   four-footed   creature 

stirs ; 

A  solemn  temple,  consecrate  to  God 
By  His  own  ministers. 

Into  the  bosom  of  a  wind-swept  glen 
The  hillside  dropped,  precipitously  sure; 


IDespers  of  tbe  tbermtts.          137 

Therein   might    timorous    creatures   have 

their  den 
And  wild  things  hide  secure. 

Below,  beyond,  receding  crest  on  crest, 
Like    frozen    billows    of   some    upheaved 

sea, 

Each  farthest  one  o'ertopping  all  the  rest, 
In  savage  majesty 

The  panorama  of  the  mountains  swept 
To  the  horizon ;  forest-clad  and  dark, 
Save  where  some  naked  crag  might  inter 
cept 
The  line  with  inverse  mark ; 

A  wild,  untutored  waste,   through   whose 

still  air 
There    swept    enfolding,    uncontaminate 

spells, 

With  ceaseless  incense  rising  unaware 
From  Nature's  thuribles. 

Long  lingered  I  in  errant  musings  wrapped, 
Dusk  as  the  shadows  and  as  profitless ; 
Scarce  a  wind-whisper  passed  or  dry  twig 

snapped 
In  all  the  wilderness. 


138         IDespers  of  tbe  Ibermits* 

From   far   away   the   mountain    torrent's 

voice, 

Subdued  by  distances  all  foliage  grown, 
Its  hoarse   bass   softened   to   harmonious 

noise, 
Rose  like  an  organ  tone. 

The  sombre  hemlocks  all  around  outspread 
Their  aromatic  arms  in  benison, 
While  from  the  netted  branches  overhead 
The  thrushes,  one  by  one, 

Broke  through  the  waiting    silence   with 

their  notes, — 
Long,   liquid,    perceant, — fluting   call    to 

call 
Mysteriously,      from      shadow  -  shrouded 

throats; 
In  sweet  antiphonal 

Chanting  the  long  day's  sacramental  hymn. 
And   as   the  unearthly  cadence  rose  and 

fell, 
All    outward    consciousness   appeared   to 

swim 
In  some  dissolving  spell 


Sattva.  139 

Where  form  and  semblance  seemed  to  de 
part 

In  a  still  prescience  of  Omnipotence; 

An  answering  vibrance  stirred  within  the 

heart, 
A  deep  responsive  sense 

Of    the    supreme    antiphony,  —  dimly 

showed: — 
And   through   my  being   sudden    rapture 

clove, 

Effused  in  aspiration,  overflowed 
Of  wondrous  peace  and  love. 

SATTVA. 

THE   PRAYER  OF  SILENCE. 

T  AM  a  sleeper  in  a  dreamless  sleep, 
*     A  leaf  afloat  upon  a  starlit  sea, 

A  lotus-blossom  folded  silently, 
A  drop  of  dew  slipping  from  deep  to  deep 
Of  bliss  that  is  repose  superlative, 

With  neither  birth  nor  death  nor  day  nor 
night 

But  only  life  in  order  exquisite. 
O  God,  my  Sea,  in  thee  I  merge — and  live ! 


140  TFUabt  piece. 

FLY,   MY  SONG. 

CLY,  my  song, 

-*•        Swallow-winged  that  thou  art! 

On  thy  pinions  strong 
Compass  the  land  and  the  sea,  •! 

Searching  unfalteringly, 
And,  wherever  she  bide  or  be, 
Find  me  the  twin  of  my  heart. 

No  world  so  wide — 
Wherever  she  bide  or  be — 
Mine  own  can  hide. 
Were  it  measure  of  mountains  massed, 
Or  oceans  between  us  cast, 
She  must  be  mine  at  last, 
She  must  rise  and  answer  me! 


NIGHT  PIECE. 


INTO  the  night  I  cast  my  song; 
*     Stars  in  the  firmament  glistened, 
Great  winds  tossed  it,  swept  it  along, 
Not  even  the  dull  earth  listened. 


THpon  a  IRomansa  of  Scbumamu    141 

Over  the  cadence  a  tremor  of  pain 

Dragged  with  a  discord's  jar, 
And  my  heart  it  broke  in  that   low   re 
frain  ; — 

For  how  could  a  song  reach  a  star  ? 

UPON  A  ROMANZA  OF  SCHUMANN. 

REAMS!    Dreams!   What  panoply  of 

dreams 
Sweep  with  their  shifting  sceneries  over 

me! 
As   if  one   heard   the   purl   of  mountain 

streams 

Mixed  with  the  diapason  of  the  sea, 
The  while  the  theme  moves  tenderly  and 

seems 
In  deeper  peace  with  every  harmony. 

Upon  emotion's  winged  thought  I  fare — 
As  eagles  sweep  the  mountain  crags  and 

scars — 
Which,  like  a  fairy  vision,  unaware 

The  portals  of  the  unutterable  unbars. 
My  spirit  floats  into  the  upper  air 

And  hears  the   Gloria  of  the  morning 
stars! 


142  B  Song  for  November. 

A  SONG  FOR  NOVEMBER. 

/""^ONE  are  the  summer  days! 
^-*     Above  the  wintry  hill 

The  north  wind  mutters  chill ; 

Cowslip  and  daffodil 
Have  gone  their  ways. 

The  sun's  engendering  shaft 
Seemeth  to  peak  and  pine, 
Wasting  without  a  sign, 
Like  some  immortal  wine 

All  spent — all  quaffed. 

Bleak  through  the  pastures  bare 
The  shrivelled  seed-wings  scud, 
There  is  nor  leaf  nor  bud; 
Life  holds  in  desuetude 

The  senile  year. 

And  'mid  the  forest  lone 

Great  trees  lift  branches  high 
Naked  against  the  sky, 
And  rattle,  moan,  and  sigh 

In  undertone. 

Alas  for  wind-born  words, 
Swift  interchanging  thought 


&  5on0  for  November.          143 

And  heart-beat  which  hath  caught 
The  summer's  glow  unsought; — 
Fled  with  the  birds!  • 

For  what  fond  will  should  stay 

The  wasting  of  the  flowers, 

The  waning  of  the  hours, 

Or  chain  with  human  powers 
Dead  yesterday  ? 

Soon,  soon  from  regions  frore 
The  northern  blast  shall  leap, 
With  icy  besom  sweep, 
And  cover  chill  and  deep 

The  shrunk  earth  o'er 

With  its  enfolding  pall ; 

And  Nature's  frozen  night 

Fall  like  a  spirit-blight, 

Outspreading  pinions  white 
Silent  o'er  all. 


NEVER  TO  KNOW. 

1VJEVER  to  know 

*•  ^     Whether  he  perished  by  forest  or  floe ; 
Whether   he    sank    'neath    his    gathering 
stress 


144  Iftever  to  Umow. 

And  slowly — slowly  the  pulse  grew  less, 
Yielding  its  agony  throe  by  throe, 
Or  whethertone  short,  sharp,  merciful  blow 
Swift    set   him   free  while  the   birds   still 

sang:— 

Ah,  there  's  the  pang —  .«* 

Ah,   there   's  the   pang   of   it! — never  to 

know! 

Never  to  know 

Whether  he  thought   of   one  then  at  the 

end! 

Called  for  his  friend, 
Longed  for  a  word  or  a  cooling  touch 
That  could  lift  so  much, 
Or  a  presence  only — a  vital  sense 
Of    companionship     into    those    shadows 

dense, 
To   steady   him   through   them; — this   he 

might  crave 
From  a  heart  that  could  break  for  him — 

break  but  not  save. 
Ah,  dear  God! — never  to  know! 


B  Xute  Coucbefc  bg  facile  fffngers.    145 

TO-MORROW  AND   TO-MORROW 
AND  TO-MORROW. 

AT  night  I   said,   "To-morrow  he  will 
^*     come," 

So  through  the  night  I  held  my  sorrow 
dumb. 


And  when  at  last  burst  forth  the  mocking 

light 
I  whispered  inly,  ' '  He  will  come  to-night. ' ' 

But  day  and  night  have  passed,  and  still— 

and  still — 
Only  the  heart-break  and  the  mortal  chill. 


LIKE   A    LUTE    TOUCHED    BY 
FACILE  FINGERS. 

T   IKE  a  lute  touched  by  facile  fingers, 
•*-'     Through   some  dim  vista  of  a  van 
ished  past, 
To  melody  ethereal  that  lingers 

Immortally,  and  will  not  be  out-cast; 


146  Swallows  at  Suneet 

So,  through  the  chill  and  cloistered  cham 
bers 
Of    thought,    within    my   being    swept 

along, 

Quick  with  the  longing  which  fore'er  re 
members, 
Thine  image  lingers  in  a  deathless  song. 

TRANSMUTATION. 

4 'Arise! 

Thou  shalt  mourn  no  more,"  said  Life; 
"  I  will  still  thy  deep  heart-cries, 
I  will  lay  my  hand  on  thy  strife. 

"  Not  long 

Till  the  tempest  beat  to  the  calm ; 
Make  thy  great  love  into  a  song, 
Lift  thy  sorrow  into  a  psalm." 

SWALLOWS  AT  SUNSET. 

\1  7ITH  gleaming  bosoms  lifted  high, 
^  *       And    poised    on    strong    exultant 

wings, 

They  circle  down  the  sunset  sky 
To  happy  twitterings. 


Swallows  at  Sunset  147 

With  every  facile  turn  and  wheel 

The    rose-gleams     paint     their    amber 
throats, 

And  flash  a  hundred  glints  of  steel 
Back  from  their  burnished  coats. 

Now,  in  a  span  that  balks  the  sight, 

They  sweep  o'er   hill   and   marsh   and 
main, 

Then,  with  their  swift  and  joyous  flight, 
Lo !  they  are  here  again ! 

Or  low  or  high  it  little  recks, 

Or  far  or  near  it  is  the  same, 
Their  rapid  undulation  flecks 

The  world  with  hints  of  flame. 

0  fair  and  tireless  ones,  my  thought 
Doth  chafe  within  its  fleshly  bond; 

1  too  would  rise,  impeded  not, 
To  the  serene  beyond. 

I  too  would  breathe  the  finer  breath 
That  fills  those  realms  of  upper  air, 

Uplifted  by  a  winged  faith 
Which  sheds  the  sordid  care. 


148         Going  ©ut  witb  tbe 


Oh  touch  me,  change  me,  lift  me  high 
Into  thy  regions  of  delight; 

And  let  me  sweep  the  sunset  sky 
Up  to  the  Infinite! 


GOING  OUT  WITH  THE  TIDE. 

T  WOULD  slip  out  to  the  violet  sea 
^     In  the  arms  of  the  ebbing  tide; 
I  should  rest  silent  and  satisfied 
Wherever  it  carried  me. 
For  the  streams  low-run, 
There  's  a  westering  sun, 
And  the  day  is  done. 

Over  the  marshes'  sweep 

With  their  billowy  ranks  of  reeds, 

Masking  the  runlets  deep 

And  a  wealth  of  amber  weeds, 

The  tide  seems  half  asleep ; — 

Seems  holding  the  heart  like  a  mirrored 

star, 

Where  the  visions  of  day  reversed  are, 
And  the  faint  ideal 
That  trembled  afar 


<3oing  ©at  witb  tbe  at&e.        149 

Groweth  the  real. 

Heats  of  the  noon  abate, 

And  the  senses  wait 

In  a  trance  co-ordinate; 

For  the  tidal  pulse  is  calm  at  the  ebb. 

And  oh!  through  the  marshes'  web, 

And  oh!  through  the  sea-fed  rill 

The  waters  sink  and  sift 

As  they  out  to  the  open  drift 

Serene  and  still. 

Never  an  eddy,  never  a  whirl, 

Only  a  soft,  white,  dimpled  curl 

Wreathing  the  weeds  with  a  carcanet, 

Leaving  them  gem-bestrewn  and  wet — 

Leaving  a  pearl. 

Hushed  on  that  mighty  breast — 

The  breast  of  the  violet  sea — 

Never  a  care  could  follow  me! 

I  should  lie  at  rest, 

Even  to  know 

There  were  wreckage  below — 

Record  of  tumult  and  woe, 

For  above 

There  is  record  of  love. 

A  Heaven  o'er-arches  the  place; 


o  Bllegro  <3iojo0o. 

In  its  boundless  grace 

Springs  the  measureless  span  of  space. 

It  is  azure  o'erhead, 

Then  flushed  to  a  rosy  red 

That  pales  with  a  protean  glow 

Till  't  is  opal  transfigured — 

Till  't  is  amethyst. 

And  is  it  the  sky  or  the  sea  ? 

Is  it  wave  or  mist  ? 

Far  away  there  's  a  mystery. 

Oh,  farther  than  sight  may  go, 

There  's  a  mystery! — 

The  gracious  bow 

Of  the  skies  bends  low 

And  blends  with  the  violet  seal 


ALLEGRO   GIOJOSO. 

OH!  the  young  heart  in  the  young  year, 
And  the  thrill  of  blossoms  breaking, 
The  white  cloud  over  the  azure  clear, 
And  the  glad  new  earth  awaking! 

Burst,    little   bud,    from    your   shrouding 

hood! 
A  fair  pale  garment  spin  you; 


(Siojoso.  151 


I  am  brother  of  wild  and  wood, 
I  am  blossoming  in  you  ! 

Sing,  dear  bird,  in  prodigal  youth 
Your  broadcast  raptures  flinging! 

I  am  one  with  your  vernal  truth, 
For  my  heart  is  singing  —  singing! 

And,  oh  !  white  sun  on  your  radiant  round, 
Send  legioned  sunbeams  glancing 

In  aery  circles  over  the  ground 
To  set  my  light  feet  dancing! 

Blow,  winds,  blow!  from  east  to  west 
Through  the  wildernesses  humming; 

There  's  a  joy  in  my  heart  all  unconfest, 
For  my  love,  my  love  is  coming! 

0  glad  round  world,  O  fair  spring  world, 
With  your  wealth  of  gracious  giving, 

1  've  an  inward  miracle  unfurled 
Beyond  your  sweet  conceiving. 

'T  is  an  opening  bud  —  a  pure  white  flame  — 

A  song  tossed  over  and  over; 
For  flower  and  song  be  all  the  same 

To  the  beating  heart  of  the  lover. 


152  a  song  of  JBlossom. 

Oh!  the  young  heart  in  the  young  year, 
And  the  thrill  of  blossoms  breaking, 

And  the  young  love  that  hath  no  fear 
With  the  glad  new  earth  awaking! 


A  SONG  OF  BLOSSOM. 

'THROUGH  the  orchard  roaming, 
*       Where  the  buds  invite, 
See  my  dear  one  coming 
Haloed  with  the  light! 

Apple  blossoms  o'er  her 

Weave  an  arbor  sweet, 
While  they  spread  before  her 

Carpets  for  her  feet. 

Faintly  rippled  laughter 

Of  the  errant  breeze 
Dainty  perfumes  waft  her 

Through  the  perfumed  trees; 

And  'mid  branches  netted 

Stolen  sunbeams  fall, 
All  with  rose-tints  fretted, 

Fair  and  virginal. 


B  TKUfnD  IRusbeo  out  of  tbe  Sea,    153 

Rosy  blooms  above  her 

Showering  o'er  her  head, 
All  a  world  to  love  her — 

Flushing  rosy  red. 

Through  a  land  enchanted, 
Fanned  with  charmed  air, 

Of  divine  loves  haunted, 
Walks  she  unaware. 


A    WIND   RUSHED    OUT    OF    THE 
SEA. 

A    WIND  rushed  out  of  the  sea! 
**•     It  leapt  the  dunes  on  the  sandy  spit, 
And  over  the  surge  of  waters  grey, 
Troubled  and  tossed  in  the  land-locked 

bay, 

It  measured  its  savage  minstrelsy 
Till  the  low  shores  answered  it. 

"  Waste,  waste, 

And  care  misplaced, 
Expectation  and  toil  ungraced, 
A  snatch  at  guerdons  ephemeral, 
And  the  cry  of  the  spirit  under  it  all ! 


154  B  TOno  iRusbeo  out  of  tbe  Sea. 

But  the  world  lies  free 
Unto  me,  unto  me!  " 
Sang  the  wind  that  rushed  from  the  sea. 

With  fugitive  gusty  stirs 
It  traversed  the  wild  wide  marshes  o'er — 
Marshes  pied  with  russet  and  gold, 
Under  the  spell  of  the  starlight  cold — 
And  swept  to  the  hearths  of  the  house 
holders, 
To  break  at  their  very  door. 

And  their  dreams  grew  black 

With  ravin  and  wrack 
Of  fleets  long-sped  but  never  come  back ; 
Ventures  flushed  with  auroral  light, 
Void  in  the  vapors  before  the  night. 

For  strange  dreams  be 

In  the  potency 
Of  winds  that  rush  from  the  sea! 

O  thoughts  in  the  heart  of  man — 
Mingled  glory  and  impotence, — 
Ye  are  the  lordly  galleons  of  state, 
Laden  low  with  your  precious  freight, 
Sailing  a  sea  of  measureless  span, 
Wafted  ye  know  not  whence; 


ttbe  !Lo0t  flMetafc.  155 

Whirlwind-caught 

O'er  tracks  untaught, 
Where  will  ye  harbor,  where  find  port  ? 
I  stand  on  the  mystic  shores  alone, 
Question  and  yearn  to  the  Vast  Unknown, 

And  grasp  for  the  key 

Of  infinity 
From  a  wind  rushing  out  of  the  sea! 


THE   LOST    PLEIAD. 

CALL  to  her  once  again,  call  her, — 
Sister!— 

Lest  the  solemn  deeps  appall  her, 
The  fathomless  abysses 
Of  the  stellar  wildernesses; — 

Sister,  sister! 

Ah,  wherefore  should  ill  befall  her,— 
Her,  our  dearest, 

Gone  when  the  night  burned  clearest  ? 
Not  Eos'  self  is  more  fair, 
When,  dewy  and  dim, 
Up  through  the  late  night  air — 
The  purple  twilight  of  night — 
She  pierces  the  earth's  far  rim; 


156  Gbe  3Lost 


Then,  rising  —  rising  — 

Standeth  revealed;  from  the  crown, 

Close-wreathed  with  curling  light, 

And  the  lips  in  a  bended  bow, 

To  the  delicate  foot,  half-arched  for  flight; 

The  filmy  garments  scarce  disguising 

The  curve  of  each  shapely  limb. 

She  makes  the  grim  worlds  new-born  seem, 

Surprising 

All  space  with  her  roseate  dream  ! 

Not  Eos'  self  was  more  fair! 

And  still  it  would  seem 

We  might  reach  her  —  reach  her  somewhere. 

Is  she  not  there  — 

There,  where  remote  star-clusters  fail  ? 

Or  yonder,  where  nebulae  glister  ? 

Or  some  meteor,  slipped  from  its  socket, 

Like  a  fine,  celestial  rocket 

Sinks  in  the  comet's  trail  ?  — 

Sister,  sister, 
Hail! 

Hast  thou  seen  the  astral  dance  ?  — 
The  whirling  circles  of  light 
That  break  through  the  doors  of  night 
As  the  starry  shapes  advance  ? 


Cbe  Xo0t  HMeiafc,  157 

Lo !  we  were  all  assembled — 

All  the  seven. 

We  swept  with  our  candent  spark 

Over  the  limitless  arc 

And  lighted  the  lamps  of  heaven. 

The  aethers  wavered  and  trembled; 

Planet,  moon,  asteroid, 

The  very  core  of  the  void, 

Took  on  new  meaning — grew  bright 

At  the  trail  of  our  garments  white. 

The  universe  all  was  alive — alight, 

Tranced  with  ineffable  glory! 

Soft  airs  predatory 

Swept  our  faces  with  bliss, 

Stealing  a  kiss, 

And  out  of  chambered  immensity 

Awoke  all  sweet  sounds  that  be. 

Mystical,  weird  night-noises, 

Echoes  of  far-off  voices — 

The  million-throated  voices  of  space, 

Like  silvery  horn-tones  answering,  calling, 

Down  through  the  palpitant  ether  falling — 

Broke  in  a  rhythmic  torrent  of  sound; — 

Whispering,  rippling,  surging,  growing, 

Upward,  downward,  over,  around; 

Till — scarcely  heeding  or  knowing — 


158  Gbe  Xost 


We  could  not  choose  but  dance! 
We  lifted  fair  arms  to  the  firmament, 
Mingling  and  swaying  in  joyous  guise; 
While  from  hand  to  hand  stretched  a  liga 

ment, 

A  twisted  riband  of  fiery  thread, 
And  over  each  head, 
Flinging  its  glow  in  our  eyes, 
In  the  band  a  light  was  bent  — 
A  single  lamp  of  a  star, 
Like  a  fire-opal  flashing  red 
Or  the  heart  of  molten  spar. 
But  oh!  for  the  flame  in  the  heart! 
The  fiery  pulse  of  emotion, 
The  smile  which  is  rhythm,  yet  mute  ;  — 
Seeming  to  start 

From  the  aureoled  head  to  the  lifted  foot 
In  music  translated  to  motion. 
And  oh!  for  the  flaming  countenance 
And  out-swept  garments  curling, 
As  we  circled  the  midnight's  vast  expanse, 
Whirling,  whirling,  whirling! 
Suddenly, 

As  if  to  a  signal  clapped, 
The     shining     ligament     quivered  —  and 

snapped! 


Cbe  TLoet  plefaD,  159 

One  scintillant  lamp  unbent, 

And,  spirting  fiery  flakes  as  it  went, 

Down  the  endless  slopes  of  night 

Vanished  from  sight. 

Over  our  sister  a  shadow  forlorn 

Swept  with  a  swift  dilation, 

As  the  hot  flame  drops  to  the  ash; 

We  caught  a  flash 

Of  startle  and  consternation, 

And  then — she  was  gone! 

Weep,  Pleione,  weep! — 

Rent  heart  and  dust-bo\ved  head — 

Such  tears  as  only  mothers  shed 

Over  their  dead. 

Sacrifice  with  us  keep, 

For  thy  loveliest  one  is  fled. 

And  thou,  sweet  Artemis! 

She  who  hath  drunk  thy  kiss 

And  followed  thy  silver  feet 

With  steps  more  fleet 

Than  the  hunted  stag  in  his  heat, 

Shall  never  follow  thee  more 

The  breezy  hill-crests  o'er. 

She  is  swallowed — lost — in  the  dread  abyss ! 

He  too  loved  her — he  of  the  crusted  zone, 


160  abe  ILost 

He  of  the  belted  stars; 

Though  he  sweep  the  heavenly  heights 
alone, 

His  eyes  cleave  swifter  than  scimitars. 

Was  it  his  fond  pursuit, 

His  passion  following  resolute 

That  snapped  the  fiery  thread  of  her  be 
ing — 

Like  a  string  o'erstrung  on  a  lute — 

And  drove  her,  neither  heeding  nor  seeing, 

Into  the  darkness  mute  ? 

Cold,  cold,  cold 

Are  the  awful  caverns  of  space, 

And  cold,  cold,  cold 

Is  the  vanished  face; 

But  colder  still,  at  life's  lone  gate, 

The  darkened  hearts  that  wait, 

No  hope — no  spark — discerning. 

For  neither  the  tender  morning  light, 

Nor  the  sweet  enfolding  arms  of  night, 

About  the  spirit  yearning, 

Can  lift  the  burden  of  blight. 

And  time  is  not  measured  by  hours — 

Following  one  by  one, — 

Not  measured  by  orbit  of  planet  or  sun, 


1>gmn  to  tbe  IFUabt.  161 

But  by  every  beat  of  the  anguished  heart, 

The  deadly  drip  of  the  wounded  part 

Which  the  inward  pang  devours — 

Burning — burning ! 

And  oh!  there  is  no  returning 

From  that  darkness  inexorable; 

It  mocks  at  us,  inky — sable; 

And  our  cry  through  immensity  tossed 

Goes  pitiless  echoing,  "Lost!  lost!  lost!  " 

And  yet — once  again — 

Oh,  call  to  her  yet  once  again ! 

Sister,  sister! 
Vain — ah,  vain! 


HYMN   TO   THE   NIGHT. 

HOLY  NIGHT,  serenest  Night, 

Star-filleted  and  dusky-eyed, 
The  day  aweary  of  its  blight 
Sinks  on  thy  bosom  satisfied. 

And  sordid  cares  and  petty  aims 

Fade,  self-slain,  in  that  peace  of  thine, 

While  newly-kindled  altar  flames 
Leap  in  the  spirit's  secret  shrine. 


162  Dgmn  to  tbe 

Beneath  thy  calm  immensity 

How  narrow  seems  our  daily  scope! 

Yet  how  superlative  might  be 
The  circling  ranges  of  our  hope! 

The  earth  about  our  garments  clings, 
We  sell  ourselves  for  that  and  this, 

And  so  beneath  life's  little  things 
Its  deep,  eternal  meaning  miss. 

With  outer  vision  veiled  and  sealed 

Into  a  higher  sphere  we  rise, 
And  catch  that  vaster  life  revealed 

By  glimpses  to  the  inward  eyes. 

O  World,  O  Time,  the  placid  Night 
Blots  out  your  fetters  with  her  dark, 

And  limitations  sink  from  sight 
As  of  a  passing  finger-mark. 

No  more  our  baffled  souls  contend, 

The    starlight    through     our    darkness 
gleams, 

We  dimly  feel  our  final  end 

And  see  the  glory  in  our  dreams. 


Bt  Suneet  163 

So  near,  so  near,  that  glory  glows 
We  know  nor  loss  nor  jar  nor  fret, 

But  drink  this  largesse  of  repose, 

And  wait  the  day  which  dawns  not  yet. 


AT   SUNSET. 

T    OOK  out,  dear  heart,   and  watch  the 
*-*     kindling  sky 

Where   great   lights    flame    and   vanish 

one  by  one; 
The  western  port  whence  immemorially 

The  sun  hath  beckoned  love  forever  on. 


A  hundred  evanescent  pageants  melt 
Each  over  each — wan  blues  to  chryso- 
prase 

That  drops  in  turn  to  crocus — with  a  belt 
Of  purple  hills  against  the  burning  haze. 

While  far  across  the  calm,  untroubled  bay 
Long-streaming  answers  trail  in  ebbing 
sheen 


164  Bt  Sunset 

Of  lesser  splendors — orange  swept  to  grey, 
And  lilac  paling  into  opaline. 


A  world  of  glory  which  the  deeps  enhance ! 
A   world  held  breathless  of  the  after- 
gleam; 
With   soft    tides    slipping    seaward    in    a 

trance, 

And   little   ships    adream    midway   the 
stream. 


There  is  no  room  for  shadow  or  regret, 
No  place  for  passion  in  this  panoply, 

But  sombre  thoughts  float  from  us  with 

their  debt 
Like  cloudy  bits  of  flotsam  to  the  sea. 

The  tranquil  spirit  opes  its  portals  wide, 
And  visions  that  too  sweet  for  language 

seem 
Outspread  themselves — like  this  enchanted 

tide — 

With  shining  thoughts  adream  midway 
the  stream. 


a  Goast  for  tbe  fear*  165 

A   TOAST   FOR   THE   YEAR. 

PLEDGE  me  a  cup,  October, 

*       Ruddy   October! 

A  goblet  rounded  and  brimming 

With  sun-shotted  wine, 

Electric  and  fine, 

The  breath  of  the  West  o'er  it  swimming 

Like  a  far-world  anodyne. 

Lo! 

The  ardent  glow 

Of  maples — scarlet,  saffron,  and  gold; 

The  mingled  tints  untold 

That    mantle    the    marshes,    scrub    and 

sedge,— 

Russet  heart  with  a  flaming  edge; 
Sumacs  incarnadine ; 
Oaks  in  their  draperies  old — 
Purple  and  bronze  austere; 
All  things  brave  and  compelling 
Shall  burn  in  this  luminous  wine, 
This  vintage  of  all  the  year. 
For  thou  like  a  prober 
From  Earth's  secret  store 
The  deepest  and  purest  dost  draw 
For  thy  sweet  distilling. 
Come  pledge  me  a  cup,  October! 


166  B  Goast  for  tbe  |)ear. 

In  the  season's  brooding  lull, 

With  long  low  shadows  streaming, 

The  haunted  woods  are  full, 

The  covert  nooks  are  teeming 

With  mystery  wonderful. 

Motes  that  rise 

Through  the  circling  light 

Materialize, 

Take  form,  grow  bright. 

I  catch  the  beat, 

The  rhythmic  swing 

Of  myriad  feet, 

Of  gossamer  garments  flickering 

Like  the  flash  of  a  dragon-fly's  wing. 

Film-attired 

Naiad,  Oread,  Dryad, 

Divinities 

Of  the  rivers  and  rocks  and  trees, 

Down  the  far,  o'erarching  vistas, 

Through  filtered  lights  advancing, 

They  come — the  airy  sisters — 

Serenely  dancing — dancing. 

Twinkling  feet  to  the  sunset  west, 

Fret  of  the  flesh  they  banish ; 

Dancing  the  burden  out  of  the  day, 

Dancing  the  fear  of  a  fear  away, 


a  Eoast  for  tbe  10ear.  167 

Dancing  the  year  to  its  rest. 

Now  there,  now  here, 

Through  the  soft  empurpled  atmosphere, 

They  flit — they  burn — they  vanish! 

Too  glad  for  a  world  grown  sober. 

Ah!  pledge  me  a  cup,  October! 

Full  in  the  effluence  mellow 
Self  will  I  steep ; 
Storing  the  crimson  and  yellow, 
The  wealth  of  prism-swept  haze, 
The  trance  of  the  loitering  days, 
Deep,  down  deep; 
Where  I  keep — 

Their  virtues  hid  to  surrender — 
The  essence  of  all  things  tender. 
Glories  that  flame 
Shall  be  the  same,  yet  not  same. 
The  prodigal  shafts  of  the  sun, 
In  inward  crucible  caught, 
Be  transmuted  from  color  to  thought, 
To   promise — promise   of  pause   and   re 
newal, 

The  gloaming  into  the  dawn  over-run, 
Existence  not  dual 
But  one. 
Lo !  how,  their  message  delivered, 


168  ©rpbeua 


The  dear  leaves  have  shrunken  and  shiv 

ered, 

Have  answered  the  sign! 
At  thy  call 

They  tremble,  and  scatter,  and  fall, 
Thou  masterful  world-disrober! 
Thine  are  they  all; 
Thine  —  and  mine  ! 
Then  pledge  me  a  cup,  October! 

ORPHEUS   SINGS. 

THRENOS. 

SK  lie  the  forest  and  the  cold  ravine, 
The    shadows     crawl     adown     the 

friendly  slope, 
There  is  no  longer  light  where  light  hath 

been, 
The  iron  crag  flings  back  to  me  my  hope. 

And  the  chill  night-wind  with  its  sombre 

moan, 
Which  from  remotest  sorrow  seems  to 

start, 

Down  the  dark  avenues  and  alleys  lone 
Finds  answering  echo  through  my  shad 
owed  heart. 


©rpbeus  Sings.  169 

It  is  as  if  one  lifted  to  his  ear 

The  twisted  shape  of  some  sea-hearted 

shell, 
And  through  its  convolutions  seemed  to 

hear 
The  torrent  of  a  life  immeasurable ; — 

A   passionate    rush,    a   solemn,    ceaseless 

roar; — 
And  felt  the  hurrying  surges  leap  and 

press; 

Yet  is  not  any  ocean  there,  nor  shore, 
Only  a  curled  mollusk's  emptiness. 

The  world  is  changed;  the  world  is  old, 

yet  stays ; 
But  like  an  autumn  leaf  which  hath  no 

goal 
I  drift  adown  the  melancholy  ways 

With   frosts    of   bitter   blight  upon  my 
soul. 

O  Love,   I  call  thee  and  thou  answerest 

not, 

The  void  is  blank — I  know  not  where 
thou  art; 


i?o  ©rpbeus  Sings. 

I  only  know  thine  image  unforgot 

Burns  like  a  sacrifice  against  my  heart — 

Its  consecrated  altar,  where  no  more 
The    living    flame   shall   light    the    ad 
vancing  years,  , 

While  ever  at  the  altar's  foot  I  pour 
The  prodigal  libation  of  my  tears. 

Oh!    for    a    draught    of   lethe    from   the 

springs 

That  breed  oblivion  and  a  drowsy  peace, 
A  numbness  of  the  knowledge  of  all  things, 
A    deadly   calm   wherein   I   too  might 
cease ! 

Bring  me  hemp  philters!    so  that  I  may 

dream, 

My  best  beloved,  that  I  am  with  thee, 
Roaming  once  more  the   hill   above  the 

stream 

Which  threads  th'  enchanted  valley  to 
the  sea; 

Glad  in  the  moment ;  as  a  glad  wild  thing 
Basks  in  the  sunshine,  drinks  the  sun- 
brewed  haze, 


©rpbeus  Singe.  w 

And  wanders  without  care  disquieting 
In  happy  vagrancy  of  summer  days. 

Or   else   withdrawn   into    some    thicket's 

shade, 

Fragrant  with  herbs  and   sweet   earth- 
harmonies, 

Watching  the  swallows  circle  overhead, 
Hearing  the  fitful  rhythm  of  the  breeze. 

No  need  for  signal  or  for  uttered  word 
To  seal  the  spell  of  union  eloquent ; 
Like   lifted   petals   were    our   heart-beats 

stirred, 

With  presence  only  were  we  well  con 
tent. 

Almost  methinks  that  I  might  clasp  thy 

hand, 
And  subtly  thrill  to  eyes  that  feed  on 

mine, 
As  aye  related  spirits  understand 

The  quickening  thought  without  an  out 
ward  sign. 

Ah  no!  it  is  a  dream — thou  art  not  there! 
'T  is  but  a  fatuous  memory  which  doth 
cling 


172  ©rpbeus  Sin00. 

About  a  phantom  fading  into  air, — 
A  breath — a  sigh — in  space  evanishing! 

This  world  hath  been  too  niggard  for  thy 

need, 
Thou  tender  one!    or  even  to   shelter 

thee 

Save  a  brief  while ;  too  full  of  sordid  greed, 
Too  narrow  for  a  rounded  liberty. 

My  spirit  beats  its  unavailing  wings 

Like  a  caged  bird  that  pants  to  be  set 

free, 

For  I  in  flight  would  quell  all  questionings, 
Searching   the   universe,    O   Love,    for 
thee. 

Not  earthly  bond  should  hold  me.     I  would 

dive 

Into   the  nethermost    deeps    and    fast 
nesses, 
Probing  their   darkling  ways, — lest  thou 

survive 

Through    caverned    labyrinth    or    dim 
recess. 


©rpbeus 

Or,    heavenward-flung,    would    seek    thy 

dwelling-place ; 

On  lifted  pinions  cleaving  far  and  far, 
To  compass  vast  illimitable  space 

Bearing  my  passionate  quest  from  star  to 
star. 

O  mortal  strain  for  an  immortal  sight! 

Material  semblances  not  thee  contain, 
Thou    art   not   in   the   depth  nor  in   the 

height; 

They    mock     my    hope; — in    vain — in 
vain — in  vain! 

Yet  naught  may  perish.     In  the  abiding 

march 
Through   changeful   cycles    of    eternal 

law — 
Like    veiling    vapors    o'er   the   heavenly 

arch — 
The  thou  and  /  endure  forevermore. 

Arouse  thee,  my  beloved,  answer  me! 

For  love  is  not  a  gift,  it  is  a  debt — 
An  unpaid  claim — at  deadliest  usury, 

Which  fast  and  faster  fetters  doth  beget. 


174  ©rpbeue  Singe, 

The  thought  may  slip  its  chains  like  bird 

uncaged, 
But  in  the  nest  there  writhes  a  brood  of 

care — 

Of  unfed  pangs— that  will  not  be  assuaged 
Save  only  love  return  to  nestle  there. 

And  dark  the  heart  lies, — an   unsensing 

thing,— 

A  waiting  potency  without  a  name, — 
A   force   whereout  the   throes  of  life  do 

spring,— 

Till    mighty   love    shall    touch   it   into 
flame. 

Till  mighty  love  shall  touch  it  into  flame, 

Till  mighty  love  unloose  the  fiery  stream 
Which  none  may  counterstand  and  none 

may  tame, 

Which   sweeps  all  being  in  a  burning 
dream. 

Oh!  then  alone  we  live  !     Oh!  then  alone 
Man  stands — a  god — upon  the  mountain 
crest 

Drinking  the  orbic  glory  of  the  sun, 
A  greater  glory  answering  in  his  breast. 


©tpbeus  5in0s,  175 

Wilt  thou  not  wake,  mine  own  ?  and  art 
thou  then 

In  lethargy  too  pitiless  to  know 
The  fervid  transport  of  my  song  again, 

Or  start  to  life  within  its  overflow  ? 

Art  thou  too  cold  to  feel  the  vital  breath 
Of  love's  enkindling  spirit  breathed  on 

thee 

With  magic  inspiration  ? — and  shall  Death 
Forever  hold  thee  in  his  mastery  ? 

Art  thou   too  cold — too  cold  ?     Still  my 

despair 
Lends  life  to  love  which  heeds  nor  ban 

nor  bar; 

If  vainly  through  the  living  realms  I  fare, 
Still  shall  I  find  thee  where  the  shadows 
are. 

Wherever  more   thou    passest — shade    or 

day — 

I  too  will  pass.     I  faint,  I  fail,  I  die ! 
Freed  of  its  clod,  the  soul  must  find  the 

way : — 
Receive  me  once  again,  Eurydice! 


RHAPSODY. 

BEING    WORDS  TO  A  PIANO    IMPROVISATION. 

DLAY  to  me,  Sweet! 

*       As  the  wan  twilight  lingers, 

Loth  yet  entirely  to  fall 

With  its  pervasive  neutral  over  all, 

Making   the    near    remote,    the    palpable 

strange, 

Will  thou  a  change; 
And,    like    a   wizard,    with   thy    puissant 

ringers 

Awaken  visions  pure  and  pastoral. 
Thy  pulse  along  the  senseless  wood  shall 

beat, 

And  while  material  shades  obliterate 
The  outward  world,  more  fleet 
Thou,  godlike,  shalt  create; 
And  then  swift-winged  thought — 
Swift-winged  thought  that  knows  nor  curb 

nor  stay, 

Leaping  the  meagre  measure  of  the  day — 
People  the  void  with  beauty,  caught 
From    inward    realms    where    the    world 

troubleth  not. 


We  shall  behold 

Vast  primal  solitudes 

All  unprofaned  by  man,  serene  and  full 

Of    splintered    half-lights    and    low-lying 

shades: 

And  wonders  manifold 
Of  murky  coverts  cool, 
And  unexpected  glades 
Fragrant  enow  for  hamadryad's  bower 
Where,  if  a  wind  but  stirs 
A  leaf,  a  grass-blade  or  a  fragile  flower, 
One  dreams  the  step  is  hers: 
Of  many  a  drowsy,  amber-colored  pool 
Where  idle  sunbeams  dream  away  the  hour 
And  a  rapt  loneliness  broods: 
Of  winding  alleys  betwixt  colonnades 
Of  aromatic  mighty-limbed  firs: — 
And  all  the  mystery  of  the  cloistered  woods. 
Ah!  well  meseems  the  little  oozy  drip 
Of  nascent  fountain  which  doth  slip 
Beneath  the  o'erlying  ledge — 
Half  loitering  to  toy  betwixt  the  tip 
Of  clinging  ferns  and  leave  them  pearled 

and  wet, 

Half  bold  with  privilege, 
Over  the  moss  and  humid  polished  stones 


178 


To  gather  to  a  tiny  rivulet 

That  with  crooned  undertones 

Leaps  forth  it  knows  not  where 

So  but  it  find  the  sunlight  and  the  air,  — 

Hath  caught  some  impulse  that  it  wots  not 

of, 
Some  echo  whence  long  branches,   over- 

met, 

Make  music  far  above. 
Long,  long,   in-linked  branches,   myriad- 

strung 

With  Nature's  living  wires 
Which  her  warm  touch  inspires 
And  which  the  fitful  winds  do  harp  among 
In  melancholy  passion,  vague,  remote  ;  — 
As  *t  were  far-pulsed  note 
Of  some  vast  ocean  with  reverberant  roar 
Against  an  alien  shore 
Hurling  itself,  to  break  and  fail  and  fall 
In  foam  ephemeral. 
Or  else  perchance  the  roll 
Of  those  profounder  cadences  which  lie 
Near  to  Infinity; 
The  shocks 

Of  spiritual  tides  against  material  rocks, 
In  ceaseless  effort  to  be  free  —  and  whole! 


IRbapsofcg.  179 

Is  then  the  ivory  dowered  with  a  soul  ? — 

A  vital  touch  to  lift  the  spirit  torn 

Into  a  nobler  eon  ? 

Lo !  in  a  moment  am  I  borne 

Above  this  troubled  trance 

Of  place  and  circumstance; 

In  joy  unknown  before 

I  mount,  I  soar, 

And  cleave  the  empyrean! 

Above  the  empyric  wind, 

Cloud-wrapped  and  mist-defined, 

Upward,  through  circumambient  airs; 

Where,  from  their  fiery  lairs 

Swift-darting  meteors 

Break  without  pause — 

Break  in  coruscant  splendor! — 

Upward,  still  upward,  in  divine  surrender  ! 

Celestial  space  is  full, 

Boundless,  unfathomable. 

Star-clusters  burn 

In  ever-widening  glories;  planets  stream 

With  majesty  supernal; 

And  on  ecstatic  orbits,  vast,  supreme, 

Rolling  from  cognizance  still  to  return, 

Measurers  yet  annihilants  of  time, 

Coeval  with  the  Eternal, 


Remote  worlds  gleam : — 
Worlds  upon  worlds,  stupendous  and  sub 
lime! 

Nor  strifes    nor  questionings   nor    fervid 
stress  .  •; 

Shall  mar  the  measure  of  my  blessedness. 
As  some  still  vap'rous  weft, 
Some  sunset  exhalation 
Trailed  o'er  a  luminous  sky, 
Doth  dream  and  drift; 
So,  on  the  bosom  of  Immensity, 
Serene,  fulfilled  I  lie — 
A  breath  of  Aspiration ! 

THE    END. 


YB  i 


SJ191S43 


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